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NtW YORK, N 
^ LIBRARY 




A castle deserted, haunted, and mysterious. 

Page 24. 
















o Q ^ ¥ T— 


THE CASTLE OF THE 
CARPATHIANS 

BY 

JULES VERNE 

J ri 

AUTHOR OF “FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON,” “THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND,” ETC, 



WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 

/ 0 >* 

( NEW YORK, N, Y, ) 

L/8RARY 

NEW YORK 

THE MERRIAM CO, 

67 FIFTH AVENUE 




I 






1396 N 


JUL 8 1953 







REFf 

/ ^ NtW YORK, ft, 
V "-._LIBRARY 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

Mustering his flock. . j 

“ One would say it was a smoke ”.15 

A castle deserted, haunted, and mysterious .... 24 

So it was taught in the school of Magister Hermod . . .25 

Frik held out the telescope to Master Koltz .... 29 

Along the only street.32 

A handsome girl was Miriota Koltz.36 

The news had spread in the village . . . . . 41 

“ If the old castle wants to smoke let it smoke ” ... 50 

They dared not even utter a word.55 

Many were the obstacles.63 

What more could they desire ?.65 

To help over rocks too high for his little legs .... 70 

He heard the nyctalops.77 

“ Am I a corpse like you ? ”.79 

He went obliquely down.83 

This was merely child’s play..84 

The marriageable girls of the district.90 

Stretched on a litter of boughs.95 

A few gipsy families moved off.102 

He had really to deal with human beings.105 

“ I said oh ! ah 1 ”.113 

Attacking the wild beasts of the mountains . . . c .120 
A companion no less eccentric ... ... 126 

The young count waited at the wing . . . . .130 

Among the Vulkan defiles. 134 

Nic Deck told his story.14° 










iv List of Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Franz had left the inn.. 147 

May your journey be fortunate.151 

A chaos in all its horror.154 

He would have rolled to the foot of the wall . . . .158 

1' e drawbridge was down . .165 

Fmz did not move . . . ..174 

It seemed to be a well . . ..179 

“ Is the attack to be to-night ?” ....... 186 

He saw two or three shadowy shapes.196 

Face to face with the baron.. 203 

Sheaves of flame sprang to the clouds ..... 204 













Ill 


THE CASTLE OF THE CARPATHIANS. 


CHAPTER I. 

This story is not fantastic ; it is merely romantic. Are we 
to conclude that it is not true, its unreality being granted ? 
That would be a mistake. We live in times when every¬ 
thing can happen—we might almost say everything has 
happened. If our story does not seem to be true to-day, 
it may seem so to-morrow, thanks to the resources of 
science, which are the wealth of the future. No one would 
think of classing it as legendary. Besides, one does not 
invent legends at the close of this practical and positive 
nineteenth century; neither in Brittany, the country of the 
ferocious Korrigans; nor in Scotland, the land of the 
brownies and gnomes; nor in Norway, the land of ases, 
elfs, sylphs, and valkyries; nor even in Transylvania, where 
the Carpathian scenery lends itself so naturally to every 
psychagogic evocation. But at the same time it is as well 
to note that Transylvania is still much attached to the 
superstitions of the early ages. 

These provinces of furthest Europe, M. de G^rando has 


B 



2 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


described them, M. Elisee Reclus has visited them. 
Neither have said anything of the strange story on which 
this romance is founded. Did they know of it ? Perhaps ; 
but they did not wish to add to the belief in it. We are 
sorry for it; for if they had related it, one would have done 
so with the precision of an annalist, and the other with 
that instinctive poetry with which all his tales of travels 
are imbued. But as neither of them has told it, I will try 
to do so for them. 

On the 29th of May a shepherd was watching his flock 
on the edge of a green plateau at the foot of Retyezat, 
which dominates a fertile valley, thickly wooded with 
straight-stemmed trees, and enriched with cultivation. 
This elevated plateau, open, unsheltered, the north-west 
winds sweep during the winter as closely as the barber’s 
razor. It is said in the country that they shave it—and 
they do so, almost. 

This shepherd had nothing arcadian in his costume, nor 
bucolic in his attitude. He was neither Daphnis, nor 
Amyntas, nor Tityrus, nor Lycidas, nor Melibceus. The 
Lignon did not murmur at his feet, which were encased in 
thick wooden shoes; it was only the Wallachian Syl whose 
clear, pastoral waters were worthy of flowing through the 
meanderings of the romance of Astrea. 

Frik, Frik of the village of Werst—such was the name 
of this rustic shepherd—was as roughly clothed as his sheep, 
but quite well enough for the hole, at the entrance of the 
village, where sheep and pigs lived in a state of revolting 
filth. 


The Castle of the Carpathians, 3 

The immanum pecus fed then under the care of the 
said Frik —immanior ipse. Stretched on a hillock carpeted 
with grass, he slept with one eye open, his big pipe in 
his mouth ; and now and then he gave a shrill whistle to 
his dogs when some sheep strayed away from the pastu¬ 
rage, or else he gave a more powerful blast which awoke 
the multiple echoes of the mountain. 

It was four o’clock in the afternoon The sun was 
sinking towards the horizon. A few summits whose bases 
were bathed in floating mist were standing out clear in the 
east. Towards the south-west two breaks in the chain 
allowed a slanting column of rays to enter the ring like a 
luminous jet passing through a half open door. 

This orographic system belongs to the wildest part of 
Transylvania, known as the county of Klausenburg, or 
Kolosvar. 

A curious fragment of the Austrian Empire is this 
Transylvania, “ Erdely,” in Magyar, which means the 
country of forests. It is bounded by Hungary on the 
north, Wallachia on the south, Moldavia on the west. 
Extending over sixty thousand square kilometres, about 
six millions of hectares, nearly the ninth of France, it is 
a kind of Switzerland, but half as large again, and no 
more populous. With its table-lands under cultivation, 
its luxuriant pasturages, its capriciously carved valleys, 
its frowning summits, Transylvania, streaked by the 
plutonic ramifications of the Carpathians, is furrowed by 
numerous watercourses flowing to swell the Theiss and 
the superb Danube, the Iron Gates of which, a few miles to 


4 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


the south, close the defile of the Balkan chain on the 
frontier of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. 

Such is this ancient country of Dacia, conquered by 
Trajan in the first century of the Christian Era. The in¬ 
dependence it enjoyed under Jean Zapoly and his suc¬ 
cessors up to 1699, ended with Leopold the First, who 
annexed it to Austria. But such was its political constitu¬ 
tion that it remained the common abode of the races 
which elbow each other but never mingle—Wallachians, 
or Roumans, Hungarians, Tsiganes, Szeklers of Moldavian 
origin, and also Saxons, whom time and circumstances 
will end by Magyarizing to the advantage of Transylvanian 
unity. 

To which of these types did the shepherd Erik belong? 
Was he a degenerate descendant of the ancient Dacians ? 
He would not have found it easy to say so, to judge by 
his tumbled hair, his begrimed face, his bristly beard, his 
thick eyebrows, like two red-haired brushes, his bluish 
eyes, bluish or greenish, the humid corners of which were 
marked with the wrinkles of old age. He must have been 
sixty-five—you would never have guessed him less. But 
he was big, hardy, upright under his yellowish cloak, 
which was not as shaggy as his chest; and a painter 
would not have lost the chance of sketching him, when he 
was wearing his grass hat, a true wisp of straw, and resting 
on his crook as motionless as a rock. 

Just as the rays penetrated through the break in the 
west, Frik turned over. His half-closed hand he made 
into a telescope, as he had already made it into a speaking- 


























Mustering his flock. 


Page 7. 

































































The Castle of the Carpathians. 5 

trumpet, to make his voice heard at a distance, and he 
looked through it attentively. 

In the clear of the horizon, a good mile away, lay a 
group of buildings, with their outlines much softened by 
the distance. This old castle occupied on an isolated 
shoulder of the Vulkan range the upper part of a table¬ 
land called the Orgall Plateau. In the bright light the 
castle stood out with the clearness displayed in stereoscopic 
views. But, nevertheless, the shepherd’s eye must have 
been endowed with great power of vision to be able to make 
out any detail in that distant mass. 

Suddenly he exclaimed, as he shook his head,— 

“ Old castle ! Old castle! You may well stand firm on 
your foundation. Three years more and you will have 
ceased to exist, for your beech-tree has only three branches 
left.” 

This beech tree, planted at the extremity of one of the 
bastions of the enclosure, stood out black against the sky, 
and would have been almost invisible at that distance to 
any one else than Frik. The explanation of the shepherd’s 
words, which were caused by a legend relative to the 
castle, we will give in due time. 

“Yes,” he repeated, “ three branches. There were four 
yesterday, but the fourth has fallen during the night. I 
can only count three at the fork. No more than three, 
old castle—no more than three ! ” 

If we attack a shepherd on his ideal side, the imagination 
readil y takes him for a dreamy, contemplative being: he 
converses with the planets, he confers with the stars, he 


6 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


reads in the skies. In reality he is generally a stupid, 
ignorant brute. But public credulity easily credits him 
with supernatural gifts : he practises sorcery ; according 
to his humour he can call up good fortune or bad, and 
scatter it among man and beast—or, what comes to the 
same thing, he sells sympathetic powders, and you can 
buy from him philtres and formulas. Can he not make 
the furrows barren by throwing into them enchanted 
stones ? Can he not make sheep sterile by merely casting 
on them the evil eye ? These superstitions are of all times 
and all countries. Even in the most civilized lands, one 
will never meet a shepherd without giving him some 
friendly word, some significant greeting, saluting him by 
the name of' 1 pastor ” to which he clings. A touch of the 
hat affords an escape from malign influences, and on the 
roads of Transylvania it is no more omitted than else¬ 
where. 

Frik, then, was regarded as a sorcerer., a caller-up of 
apparitions. According to him the vampires and stryges 
obeyed him : if you were to believe him, these were to be 
met with at the setting of the moon, as on dark nights in 
other countries you see the great bissext astride on the 
arms of the mill talking with the wolves or dreaming in the 
starlight. 

Frik profited by all this He sold charms and counter 
charms. But, be it noted, he was as credulous as his 
believers ; and if he did not believe in his own witchcraft, 
he believed in the legends of his country. 

There is nothing surprising therefore in his prophecy 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


7 


regarding the approaching disappearance of the old castle, 
now that the beech was reduced to three branches, or in his 
at once setting out to bear the news to Werst. 

After mustering his flock by bellowing loudly through a 
long trumpet of white wood, he took the road to the 
village. His dogs followed him, hurrying on the sheep as 
they did so—two mongrel demi-grififins, snarling and 
ferocious, who seemed fitter to eat the sheep than to guard 
them. He had a hundred rams and ewes, a dozen 
yearlings, the rest three and four years old. 

The flock belonged to the judge of Werst, the biro 
Koltz, who paid the commune a large sum for pasturage, 
and who thought a good deal of his shepherd Frik, know¬ 
ing him to be a skilful shearer and well acquainted with 
the treatment of such maladies as thrush, giddiness, fluke, 
rot, foot rot, and other cattle ailments. 

The flock moved in a compact mass, the bell-wether 
at the nead, making the bell heard above the bleat¬ 
ing. 

As he left the pasture Frik took a wide footpath bordered 
by spacious fields, in which waved magnificent ears of corn, 
very long in the straw and high on the stalk; and several 
plantations of koukouroutz, which is the maize of the 
country. The road led to the edge of a forest of firs and 
spruces, fresh and gloomy beneath their branches. Lower 
down the Syl flowed along its luminous course, filtering 
through the pebbles in its bed, and bearing the logs of wood 
from the sawmills up stream. 

Dogs and sheep stopped on the right bank of the river 


8 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

and began to drink greedily, pushing the reeds aside to 
d ■) so. 

Werst was not more than three gunshots away, beyond 
a thick plantation of willows formed of well-grown trees, 
and not of stunted pollards which only grow bushy for a 
few feet above their roots. These willows stretched away 
up to Vulkan Hill, of which the village of the same name 
occupied a projection on the southern slope of the Plesa 
range. 

The fields were now deserted. It is only at nightfall 
that the labourers return home, and Frik as he went along 
had no traditional “ good night ” to exchange. When his 
flock had satisfied their thirst, he was about to enter the 
fold of the valley when a man appeared at the bend of the 
Syl, some fifty yards down stream. 

“ Hallo, friend ! ” said he to the shepherd. 

He was one of those pedlars who travel from market to 
market in the district. They are to be met with in the 
towns and all the villages. In making themselves under¬ 
stood they have no difficulty, for they speak all languages. 
Was this one an Italian, a Saxon, or a Wallachian ? No 
one could say, but he was unmistakably a Jew—tall, thin, 
hook-nosed, with a pointed beard, a prominent forehead, 
and keen, glittering eyes. 

This pedlar dealt in telescopes, thermometers, baro¬ 
meters, and small clocks. What he did not carry in the 
bag strongly strapped over his shoulder, he hung from his 
neck and his belt, so that he was quite a travelling stall. 

Probably this Jew had the usual respect for shepherds 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


9 


and the salutary fear they inspire. He shook Frik by the 
hand. Then in the Rouman language, which is a mixture 
of Latin and Sclave, he said with a foreign accent,— 

“ Are you getting on all right, friend ? ” 

“ Yes—considering the weather,” replied Frik. 

“ Then you must be doing well to-day, for the weather 
is beautiful.” 

“And I shall not be doing well to-morrow, for it will 
rain.” 

“ It will rain ? ” said the pedlar. “ Then it rains without 
clouds in your country ? ” 

“ The clouds will come to-night—and from yonder, the 
bad side of the mountain.” 

“ How do you know that ?” 

“ By the wool of my sheep, which is harsh and dry as 
tanned leather.” 

“ Then it will be all the worse for those who are on a 
long journey.” 

“ And all the better for those who stay near home. ' 

“ Then you have a home, shepherd ? ” 

<f Have you any children ? ” said Frik. 

“ No.” 

“ Are you married ? ” 

“ No.” 

And Frik asked this because in this country it is the 
custom to do so of those you meet. He continued,— 

“ Where do you come from, pedlar ?” 

“ From Hermanstadt.” 

Hermanstadt is one of the principal villages of Transyl- 


IO 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


vania. On leaving it you find the valley of the Hun¬ 
garian Syl, which flows down to the town ot Petroseny. 

“ And you are going ? ” 

“To Kolosvar.” 

To reach Kolosvar you have to ascend the valley of the 
Maros, and then by Karlsburg along the lower slopes of 
the Bihar mountains you reach the capital of the country. 
It is a walk of twenty miles only. 

These vendors of thermometers, barometers, and cheap 
jewellery always seem to be a peculiar people and some¬ 
what Hoffmanesque in their bearing. It is part of their 
trade. They sell time and weather in all forms—the time 
which flies, the weather which is, and the weather which 
will be—just as other packmen sell baskets and drapery. 
They are commercial travellers for the house of Saturn & 
Co., of the sign of the Golden Shoe. And doubtless 
this was the effect the Jew produced on Frik, who 
gazed not without astonishment at this display of things 
which were new to him, the use of which he did not 
know. 

“I say, pedlar/’ said he, stretching out his arm, “what 
is the use of all this trumpery which rattles at your belt 
like a lot of old bones ? ” 

“ These things are valuable,” said the pedlar; “ they are 
of use to everybody.” 

“To everybody?” said Frik, winking his eye, “even to 
shepherds ? ” 

“ Even to shepherds.” 

“ What is the use of this machine ? ” 


The Castle of the Carpathians. ii 

“This machine,” answered the Jew, putting a thermometer 
into his hands, “ will tell you if it is hot or cold.” 

“ Ah, friend ! I can tell that when I am sweating under 
my tunic, or shivering under my overcoat.” 

Evidently that was enough for a shepherd who did not 
trouble himself about the wherefore of science. 

“And this big watch with a needle?” continued he, 
pointing to an aneroid. 

“That is not a watch, but an instrument which will tell 
you if it will be fine to-morrow or if it will rain.” 

“ Really?” 

“ Really.” 

“Good,” said Frik. “ I don’t want that even if it only 
costs a kreutzer. I have only to look at the clouds trailing 
along the mountains or racing over the higher peaks, and 
I can tell you what the weather will be a day in advance. 
Look, do you see that mist which seems to rise from the 
ground ? Well, I tell you it means water for to-morrow ! ” 

And in fact the shepherd, who was a great observer of 
the weather, could do very well without a barometer. 

" I will not ask you if you want a clock,” continued the 
pedlar. 

“A clock ! I have one which goes by itself and hangs 
over my head. That is the sun up there. Look you, 
friend, when it is over the peak of Roduk it is noon; when 
it looks at me across the gap of Egelt it is six o’clock. 
My sheep know it as well as I do, and my dogs know it as 
well as my sheep. You can keep your clocks.” 

“ Then,” said the pedlar, “ if my only customers were 


12 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


shepherds, I should have hard work to make a fortune. 
And so you want nothing?” 

“ Nothing at all.” 

Besides which all these low-priced goods were of very 
poor workmanship : the barometers never agreed as to its 
being changeable weather or fair, the clock-hands made 
the hours too long or the minutes too short—in fact they 
were pure rubbish. The shepherd suspected this, perhaps, 
and did not care to become a buyer. But just as he was 
taking up his stick again, he caught sight of a sort of tube 
hangingfrom the pedlar’s strap. 

“What do you do with that tube?” 

“ That tube is not a tube.” 

“ Is it a blunderbuss ? ” 

“ No,” said the Jew, “ it is a telescope.” 

It was one of those common telescopes which magnify 
the objects five or six times, or bring them as near, which 
produces the same result. 

Frik unhooked the instrument, he looked at it, he handled 
it, and opened and shut it. 

Then he shook his head. 

“ A telescope ? ” he asked. 

“Yes, shepherd, and a good one,and one that will make 
you see a long way off.” 

“ Oh ! I have good eyes, my friend. When the air is 
clear I can see the rocks on the top of Retyezat and the 
farthest trees in the Vulkan valleys.” 

“ Without winking ? ” 

“ Without winking. It is the dew which makes me do 





< c 


One would say it was a smoke 


> > 


Page 15. 
















































































































































































































































So it was taught in the school of Magister Hermod. 


Page 


3 































The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


13 


that, and my sleeping from night to morning under the 
star-lit sky. That is the sort of thing to keep your pupils 
clean.” 

“ What—the dew ? ” said the pedlar. “ It might perhaps 
make the blind—” 

“ Not the shepherds.” 

“ Quite so ! But if you have good eyes, mine are better 
when I get them at theendof that telescope.” 

“ That remains to be seen.” 

“ Put yours to it now ! ” 

“Mine?” 

“Try.” 

“ Will that cost me anything ? ” asked Frik suspiciously. 

“Nothing at all, unless you buy the machine.” 

Being reassured on this point, Frik took the telescope, 
the tubes of which were adjusted by the pedlar. Shutting 
his left eye as directed, he applied his right eye to the eye¬ 
piece. 

At first he looked towards Vulkan Hill and then up 
towards Plesa. That done, he lowered the instrument and 
brought it to bear on the village of Werst. 

“ Ah ! ah ! ” he said. “ Perhaps you arc right. It does 
carry farther than my eyes. There is the main road. I 
recognize the people. There is Nic Deck, the forester, 
coming home with his haversack on his back and his gun 
over his shoulder.” 

“ I told you so,” said the pedlar. 

“ Yes, yes, that is really Nic ! ” said the shepherd. “ And 
who is the girl who is coming out of Koltz’s house, with 


14 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

the red petticoat and the black bodice, as if to get in front 
of him?” 

“ Keep on looking, shepherd. You will soon recognize 
the girl, as you did the young man.” 

“Ah! yes! It is Miriota—the lovely Miriota! Ah! 
the lovers, the lovers! This time I have got them at the 
end of my tube, and I shall not lose one of their little 
goings on ! ” 

“ What do you say to the telescope ? ” 

“ Eh ? It does make you see far! ” 

As Frik was looking through a telescope for the first 
time, it follows that Werst was one of the most backward 
villages of the country of Klausenburg ; and that this was 
so we shall soon see. 

“ Come, shepherd,” continued the pedlar, “ look again ; 
look farther than Werst. The village is too near us. 
Look beyond, farther beyond, I tell you l” 

“ Shall I have to pay any more ? ” 

“No more.” 

“ Good ! I will look towards the Hungarian Syl! Yes. 
There is the clock-tower at Livadzel. I recognize it by 
the cross which has lost one arm. And, beyond, in the 
valley, among the pines, I see the spire of Petroseny with 
its weathercock of zinc with the open beak as if it were 
calling its chickens; and, beyond, there is that tower 
pointing up amid the trees. But I suppose, pedlar, it is 
all at the same price ? ” 

“ All the same price, shepherd.” 

Frik turned the telescope towards the plateau of Orgall; 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


i5 


then with it he followed the curtain of forests darkening 
the slopes of Plesa, and the field of the objective framed 
the distant outline of the village. 

“Yes!” he exclaimed, “the fourth branch is on the 
ground. I had seen aright. And no one will get it to 
make a torch of it for the night of St. John. Nobody, 
not even me ! It would be to risk both body and soul. 
But do not trouble yourself about it. There is one who 
knows how to gather it to-night for his infernal fire—and 
that is the Chort! ” 

The Chort being the devil when he is invoked in the 
language of the country. 

Perhaps the Jew might have demanded an explanation 
of these incomprehensible words, as he was not a native of 
the village of Werst or its environs, had not Frik exclaimed 
in a voice of terror mingled with surprise,— 

“ What is that mist escaping from the donjon ? Is it a 
mist? No ! One would say it was a smoke ! It is not 
possible. I'or hundreds and hundreds of years no smoke 
has come from the chimneys of the castle ! ” 

“If you see a smoke over there, shepherd, there is a 
smoke.” 

“ No, pedlar, no. It is the glass of your machine which 
is misty.” 

“Clean it.” 

“And when I have cleaned it—” 

Frik shifted the telescope, and, having rubbed the 
glasses, he replaced it at his eye. 

It was undoubtedly a smoke streaming from the upper 


1 6 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


part of the donjon. It mounted high in the air and 
mingled with the higher vapours. 

Frik remained motionless and silent. All his attention 
was concentrated on the castle, from which the rising 
shadow began to touch the level of the plateau of 
Orgall 

Suddenly he lowered the telescope, and, thrusting his 
hand into the pouch he wore under his frock, he said,— 

“ How much do you want for your tube ? ” 

“ A florin and a half! ” said the pedlar. 

And he would have sold the telescope for a florin if 
Frik had shown any desire to bargain for it. But the 
shepherd said not a word. Evidently under the influence 
of an astonishment as sudden as it was inexplicable, he 
plunged his hand to the bottom of his wallet and drew out 
the money. 

“Are you buying the telescope for yourself?” asked 
the pedlar. 

“ No ; for my master.” 

“ And he will pay you back ? ” 

“ Yes the two florins it costs me.” 

“What! The two florins ? ” 

“Eh! Certainly! That and no less. Good evening, 
my friend ! ” 

“ Good evening, shepherd.” 

And Frik, whistling his dogs and urging on his flock, 
struck off rapidly in the direction of Werst. 

The Jew, looking at him as he went, shook his head, as 
if he had been doing a trade with a madman. 



The Castle of the Carpathians. 17 

“ If I had known that,” he murmured, u I should have 
charged him more for that telescope.” 

Then he adjusted his burden on his belt and shoulders 
and resumed his journey to Karlsburg along the right 
bank of the Syl. 

Where did he go ? It matters little. He passed out of 
this story. We shall meet with him no more. 


f * NtW YORK, It. Y 



LIBRARY 




CHAPTER II. 


It matters not whether we are dealing with native rocks 
piled up by natural means in distant geological epochs, 
or with constructions due to the hand of man over which 
the breath of time has passed, the effect is much the same 
when viewed from a few miles off. Unworked stone and 
worked stone may easily be confounded. From afar, the 
same colour, the same lineaments, the same deviations of 
line in the perspective, the same uniformity of tint under 
the grey patina of centuries. 

And so it was with this castle, otherwise known as the 
Castle of the Carpathians. To distinguish the indefinite 
outlines of this structure on the plateau of Orgall, which 
crowns the left of Vulkan Hill, was impossible. It did 
not stand out. in relief from the background of mountains. 
What might have been taken as a donjon was only a stony 
mound ; what might be supposed to be a curtain with its 
battlements might be only a rocky crest. The mass was 
vague, floating, uncertain. And in the opinion of many 
ourists the Castle of the Carpathians existed only in the 
magination of the country people. 

Evidently the simplest m:ans of assuring yourself as to 



The Castle of the Carpathians. 19 

its existence would have been to have bargained with a 
guide from Vulkan or Werst, to have gone up the valley, 
scaled the ridge, and visited the buildings. But a guide 
would have been as difficult to find as the road leading to 
the castle. In the valley of both Syls no one would have 
agreed to be guide to a traveller, for no matter what 
remuneration, to the Castle of the Carpathians. 

What they would have seen of this ancient habitation 
in the field of a telescope more powerful and better 
focussed than the trumpery thing bought by the shepherd 
Frik on account of his master Koltz, was this :— 

Some 800 or 900 feet in the rear of Vulkan Hill lay a 
grey enclosure, covered with a mass of wall plants, and 
extending for from 400 to 500 feet along the irregularities 
of the plateau ; at each end were two angular bastions, in the 
right of which grew the famous beech close by a slender 
watch-tower or look-out with a pointed roof; on the left a 
few patches of wall, strengthened by flying buttresses, 
supporting the tower of a chapel, the cracked bell of which 
was often sounded in high winds to the great alarm of the 
district ; in the midst, crowned by its crenellated platform, 
a heavy, formidable donjon, with three rows of leaded win- 
dows, the first storey of which was surrounded by a circular 
terrace ; on the platform a long metal spire, ornamented 
with a feudal virolet, or weathercock, stationary with rust, 
which a last puff of the north-west wind had set pointing 
to the south-east. 

As to what was contained in this enclosure, if there was 
any habitable building within, if a drawbridge or a postern 

C 


20 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


gave admittance to it, had been unknown for a number of 
years. In fact, although the Castle of the Carpathians 
was in better preservation than it seemed to be, an infec¬ 
tious terror, doubled by superstition, protected it as much 
as it had formerly been by its basilisks, its grasshoppers, 
its bombards, its culverins, its thunderers, and other engines 
of mediaeval artillery. 

But, nevertheless, the Castle of the Carpathians was 
well worth visiting by tourists and antiquaries. Its situa¬ 
tion on the crest of the Orgall plateau was exceptionally 
fine. From the upper platform of the keep, or donjon, the 
view extended to the farthest point of the mountains. In 
the rear undulated the lofty chain, so capriciously spurred, 
which serves as the frontier of Wallachia. In front lay 
the sinuous defile of the Vulkan,the only practicable route 
between the frontier provinces. Beyond the valley of the 
two Syls lay the towns of Livadzel, Lonyai, Petroseny, 
and Petrilla, grouped at the mouths of the shafts by which 
this rich coal-basin is worked. In the distance lay an 
admirable series of ridges, wooded to their bases, green on 
their flanks, barren on their summits, commanded by the 
rugged peaks of Retyezat and Paring. Far away beyond 
the valley of the Hatszeg and the course of the Maros, 
•appeared the distant mist-clad outlines of the Alps of 
Central Transylvania. 

Hereabouts the depression of the ground formerly 
formed a lake into which the two Syls flowed before they 
found a passage through the chain. Nowadays this 
depression is a coal-field with its advantages and inconve- 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 21 

niences : the tall brick chimneys rise amid the p jplars, 
pines, and beeches, and black fumes poison the air which 
once was saturated with the perfumes of fruit-trees and 
flowers. Rut at the time of our story, although industry 
was holding the mining district under its iron hand, 
nothing had been lost of the country’s wild character 
which was its by nature. 

The Castle of the Carpathians dated from the twelfth or 
thirteenth century. In those days, under the rule of the 
chiefs or voivodes, monasteries, churches, palaces, castles 
were fortified with as much care as the towns and villages. 
Lords and peasants had to secure themselves against 
aggression of all kinds. This state of affairs explains why 
the old fortifications of the castle, its bastions and its keep, 
gave it the appearance of a feudal building. What archi¬ 
tect would have built on this plateau at this height ? We 
know not, and the bold builder is unknown, unless it was 
the Rouman Manoli, so gloriously sung of in Wallachian 
legend, and who built at Curte d’Argis the celebrated 
castle of Rodolphe the Black. 

Whatever doubts there might be as to the architect, 
there were none as to the family who owned the castle. 
The barons of Gortz had been lords of the country from 
time immemorial. They were mixed up in all the wars 
which ensanguined the Transylvanian fields ; they fought 
against the Hungarians, the Saxons, the Szeklers ; their 
name figures in the “ cantices ” and “ doines,” in which is 
perpetuated the memory of these disastrous times. For 
their motto they had the famous Wallachian proverb, Dap 3 


I 


Z2 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


maorte , “ Give unto death and they gave ; they poured 
out their blood for the cause of independence, the blood 
which came to them from the Romans their ancestors. 

As we know, all their efforts of devotedness and sacrifice 
ended only in reducing the descendants of this valiant 
race to the most unworthy oppression. It no longer 
exists politically. Three heels have crushed it But these 
Wallachians of Transylvania have not despaired of shaking 
off the yoke. The future belongs to them, and it is with 
unshakable confidence that they repeat these words in 
which are concentrated all their aspirations : “ Roman no 
pere !** (the Rouman does not know how to perish). 

Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the last 
representative of the lords of Gortz was Baron Rodolphe. 
Born at the Castle of the Carpathians, he had seen the 
family die away around him in the early years of his 
youth. When he was twenty-two years old he found 
himself alone in the world. His people had fallen off 
year by year, like the branches of the old beech-tree with 
which popular superstition associated the very existence 
of the castle. Without relatives, we might even say 
without friends, what could Baron Rodolphe do to occupy 
the leisure of this monotonous solitude that death had 
made around him ? What were his tastes, his instincts, 
hi? aptitudes ? It would not have been easy to discover 
any beyond an irresistible passion for music, particularly 
for the singing of the great artistes of the period. And so, 
after having entrusted the castle, then much dilapidated, 
to the care of a few old servants, he one day disappeared. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 23 

And, as was discovered later on, he had devoted his 
wealth, which was considerable, to visiting the chief 
lyrical centres of Europe, the theatres of Germany, France, 
and Italy, where he could indulge himself in his insatiable 
dilettante fancies. Was he an oddity, or a madman ? 
The strangeness of his life led people to suppose so. 

But the remembrance of his country was deeply 
engraven on the heart of the young lord of Gortz. In 
his distant wanderings he had not forgotten his Tran¬ 
sylvanian birthplace. And he had returned to take part 
in one of the sanguinary revolts of the Roumanian 
peasantry against Hungarian oppression. 

The descendants of the ancient Dacians were con¬ 
quered, and their territory shared among the conquerors. 

It was in consequence of this defeat that Baron 
Rodolphe finally left the Castle of the Carpathians, 
certain parts of which had already fallen into ruin. Death 
soon deprived the castle of its last servants and it was 
totally deserted. As to the Baron de Gortz, the report 
went that he had patriotically associated himself with the 
famous Rosza Sandor, an old highwayman, whom the 
war of independence had made a dramatic hero. Happily 
for him, at the close of the struggle Rodolphe dc Gortz had 
separated from the band of the “ betyar,” and he had 
done wisely, for the old brigand had again become a 
robber, and ended by falling into the hands of the police, 
who shut him up in the prison of Szamos-Uyvar. 

Nevertheless, another version was generally believed in 
in the country, to the effect that Baron Rodolphe had 


24 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

been killed during an encounter between Rosza Sandor 
and the custom-house officers on the frontier. This was 
not so, although the Baron de Gortz had never appeared 
at the castle since that time, and his death was generally 
taken for granted. But it is wise not to accept without 
considerable reserve the gossip of this credulous people. 

A castle deserted, haunted, and mysterious A vivid 
and ardent imagination had soon peopled it with phan¬ 
toms ; ghosts appeared in it, and spirits returned to it at 
all hours of the night. Such opinions are still common 
in certain superstitious countries of Europe, and Tran¬ 
sylvania is one of the most superstitious. 

Besides, how could the village of Werst put off its 
belief ih the supernatural ? The pope and the school¬ 
master, the one charged with the education of the faithful, 
the other charged with the education of the children, 
taught their fables as openly as if they believed in them 
thoroughly. They affirmed, and even produced “corrobo¬ 
rative evidence M that were-wolves prowled about the 
country; that vampires known as stryges, because they 
shrieked like stryges, quenched their thirst on human 
blood; that “staffii” lurked about ruins and became 
vindictive if something to eat and drink were not left for 
them every night. There were fairies, “ babes ’ who 
should not be met with on Thursdays or Fridays, the two 
worst days in the week. In the depths of the forests, 
those enchanted forests, there wandered the “ balauri,” 
those gigantic dragons whose jaws gape up to the clouds, 
the “ zmei ” with vast wings, who carry away the daughters 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 25 

of the royal blood, and even those of meaner lineage when 
they are pretty! Here, it would seem, were a number of 
formidable monsters, and what is the good genius opposed 
to them in the popular imagination ? Simply the “ serpi 
de casa,” the snake of the fireside, which lives at the back 
of the hearth, and whose healthy influence the peasant 
purchases by feeding him with the best milk. 

If ever a castle was a fitting refuge for the creatures of 
this Roumanian mythology, was it not the Castle of the 
Carpathians ? On that isolated plateau, inaccessible ex¬ 
cept from the left of Vulkan Hill, there could be no doubt 
that there lived dragons and fairies and stryges, and pro¬ 
bably a few ghosts of the family of the barons of Gortz. 
And so it had an evil reputation, which it deserved, as 
they said. No one dared to visit it. It spread around it 
a terrible epidemic as an unhealthy marsh gives forth its 
pestilential emanations. Nothing could approach it within 
a quarter of a mile without risking its life in this world 
and its salvation in the next. At least so it was taught in 
the school of Magister Hermod. 

But at the same time this state of things was to end 
eventually, and that as soon as no stone remained of the 
ancient stronghold of the barons of Gortz. And here it 
was that the legend came in. 

If we were to believe the authorities of the village of 
Werst, the existence of the castle was bound up with that 
of the old beech-tree which grew in the bastion to the 
right of the enclosure. Since the departure of Rodolphe 
de Gortz, the people of the village, and more especially 


26 The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

the shepherd Frik, had observed it—this beech-tree had 
lost one of its main branches every year. There were 
eighteen from the first fork when Baron Rodolphe was 
seen for the last time on the platform of the keep, and 
now the tree had only three. Consequently every branch 
that fell meant a year less in the castle’s life. The fall of 
the last would mean the final dissolution ; and then on 
the plateau of Orgall the remains of the Castle of the 
Carpathians would be sought in vain. 

Evidently this was but one of those legends which 
spring up so readily in Roumanian imagination. In the 
first place it remained to be proved that this beech tree 
did really lose one of its branches a year, although Frik 
did not hesitate to assert that it did, he who never lost 
sight of it while his flock pastured in the meadows of the 
Syl. Nevertheless, from the highest to the lowest of the 
people of Werst, none doubted that the castle had but 
three years to live, for only three branches could now be 
counted on the tutelary tree. 

Thus it was that the shepherd had started on his return, 
to the village with the important news when there 
occurred the incident of the telescope. 

Important news, very important news in fact ! Smoke 
had appeared above the donjon ! That which his eyes 
alone had not been able to notice, Frik had distinctly 
seen with the pedlar’s telescope. It was no vapour but 
real smoke which had risen into the clouds ! And yet the 
castle was deserted. For a long time no one had entered 
the gate, which was doubtless shut, nor crossed the 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 27 

drawbridge, which was doubtless up. If it were inhabited 
it could only be by supernatural beings. But what use 
could spirits have for a fire in the rooms of the keep ? 
Was it a fire in a room ? Was it a kitchen fire? Really 
it was inexplicable. 

Frik hurried his sheep along the road; at his voice the 
dogs urged the flock up the rising track, the dust of which 
had been laid by the evening moisture. 

A few peasants, delayed in the fields, greeted him as 
he passed, and he scarcely replied to them. And con¬ 
sequently there was much uneasiness, for if you would 
avoid evil influences,it is not enough to say “ Good evening” 
to a shepherd, but the shepherd must say it to you. And 
Frik did not appear much inclined to do so, as he hurried 
on with his haggard eyes, his curious gait, and his excited 
gestures. The wolves and the bears might have walked 
off with half his flock without his noticing it. 

The first who learnt the news was Judge Koltz From 
afar Frik saw him and shouted,— 

“ There is a fire at the castle, master! ” 

“ What do you say ? ” 

“ I say what there is.” 

“ Have you gone mad ?” 

And how could a fire break out in such a heap of old 
stones? As well assert that Negoi, the highest peak of 
the Carpathians, had been devoured by flames. It would 
have been no more absurd. 

“ You suppose that the castle is on fire ? ” asked Master 
Koltz. 


28 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“ If it is not on fire, it smokes.” 

“ It is some vapour.” 

“No; it is smoke. Come and see ! ” 

And they went into the middle of the main road of the 
village, near the terrace, from which the castle could be 
observed. 

When they got there Frik held out the telescope to 
Master Koltz. 

Evidently the use of this instrument was no more known 
to him than it had been to his shepherd. 

“ What is that ? ” he said. 

“ A machine 1 bought for you for two florins, master, 
and it is well worth four.” 

“Of whom ? ” 

“ A pedlar.” 

“And what is it to do ?” 

“ Put it to your eye, look straight at the castle, and you 
will see.” 

The judge levelled the telescope at the castle and looked 
through it for some time. 

Yes ! There was certainly smoke rising from one of the 
chimneys of the donjon. At this moment it was being 
blown away by the breeze and floating up the flank of the 
mountain. 

“Smoke! ” said Master Koltz, astonished. But now he 
and Frik had been joined by Miriota and the forester, 
Nic Deck, who had been indoors for some time. 

“ What is the use of this ? ” asked the young man, taking 
the telescope. 



Frik held out the telescope to Master Koltz 


Page 29 , 









































































































































































































































































































i\(ms 



Along the only street 


Page 32 

































The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 29 

“ To see with afar off,” said the shepherd. 

“ Are you joking ? ” 

“Joking ? Hardly an hour ago I saw you coming down 
the road into Werst. You and—” 

He did not finish his sentence. Miriota had blushed 
and lowered her pretty eyes. After all, there was no harm 
in an honest young girl going to meet her betrothed. 

Both of them took the famous telescope, and looked 
through it at the castle. 

Meanwhile half a dozen neighbours had arrived on the 
terrace, and, after many questions as to what it all meant, 
took a look through the telescope in turn. 

“ A smoke! A smoke at the castle ! ” said one. 

“Perhaps the lightning has struck the donjon!” said 
another. 

“Has there been any thunder?” asked Master Koltz/ 
addressing Frik. 

“ Not a sound for a week,” said the shepherd. 

And the good folks could not have been more startled 
if a crater had opened on the summit of Retyezat to give 
passage to the subterranean vapours. 


CHAPTER III. 


The village of Werst is of so little importance that most 
maps do not indicate its position. In administrative rank 
it is even below its neighbour called Vulkan, from the 
name of that portion of the Plesa range on which both 
are picturesquely situated. 

At the present time, when the opening up of the coal¬ 
field has increased the importance of the towns of 
Petroseny, Livadzel, and others, a few miles off, neithei 
Vulkan nor Werst has received the least advantage from 
their proximity to a great industrial centre. What the 
villages were fifty years ago—what they will doubtless be 
half a century hence—they are still; and, according to 
Elisee Reclus, a good half of the Vulkan population con¬ 
sists of “ people engaged in watching the frontier—custom¬ 
house officers, gendarmes, revenue officers, and quarantine 
attendants.” Omit the gendarmes and the revenue officers, 
add a larger proportion of agriculturists, and you will have 
the population of Werst, consisting of a few hundred 
inhabitants. 

It is a street, this village, nothing but a wide street, the 
uphill nature of which makes the ascent and descent 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 31 

laborious enough along the road. It serves as the natural 
thoroughfare between the Wallachian and Transylvanian 
frontier. Through it pass the cattle and sheep and pigs, 
the dealers in fresh provisions, fruits, and cereals, the few 
travellers who venture through the defile instead of taking 
the Kolosvar and Maros valley railways. 

Nature has assuredly generously endowed the district 
between the mountains of Bihar, Retyezat, and Paring. 
Rich in the fertility of its soil, it is also rich in its under¬ 
ground wealth. There are salt-mines at Thorda with an 
annual output of more than twenty thousand tons : Mount 
Parajd, measuring seven kilometres in circumference at 
its dome, is entirely formed of chloride of sodium ; the 
mines of Torotzko yield lead, galena, mercury, and espe¬ 
cially iron, the beds of which were worked in the tenth 
century ; at Vayda Ilunyad are mines whose products can 
be turned into steel of superior quality; there are coal¬ 
mines easily worked in the upper strata of the lacustrine 
valleys cf the districts of Hatszeg, Livadzcl, and Petroseny, 
a vast deposit, estimated to contain two hundred and fifty 
million tons ; and, finally, there arc gold-mines at Ofifen- 
banya, at Topanfalva, the region of the gold-seekers, 
where thousands of primitive mills are working the sands 
of Veres-Patak, “The Transylvanian Pactolus,” and ex¬ 
porting every year about two million francs’ worth of the 
precious metal. 

Here is a district that would seem to be greatly favoured 
by nature, and yet its wealth is of very little profit to its 
population. If the more important centres, like Torotzko, 


32 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


Petroseny, and Lonyai, possess a few establishments suited 
to the comfortable conditions of modern industrial life ; if 
they have regular buildings laid out with rule and line, and 
outhouses and shops, real workmen’s towns in fact; if they 
have a certain number of houses with balconies and 
verandahs, that is not the case at Vulkan or at Werst. 

Some sixty houses, irregularly clustering along the only 
street, capped with a fanciful roof, the ridge overhanging 
the mud wall, the front towards the garden, an attic with 
a skylight as a top storey, a dilapidated barn as an annexe : 
a stable all awry, covered with straw ; here and there a well 
surmounted by abeam from which hangs a bucket ; two or 
three ponds which run over during a storm ; streams, of 
which the tortuous ruts indicate the course; such is the 
village of Werst, built on both sides of the road between 
the slanting slopes of the hill. But it is all very fresh and 
attractive; there are flowers at the doors and windows ; 
curtains of verdure screening the walls; plants in disorder 
mingling with the old gold of the thatch ; poplars, elms, 
beeches, pines, maples, climbing above the houses as high 
as they can. Beyond are the zigzagged flanks of the hills, 
and in the background the tops of the mountains, blue in 
the distance, and mingling their blue with the sky. 

Neither German nor Hungarian is spoken at Werst, nor 
in any of this part of Transylvania; the people speak 
Roumanian—even the gipsi-es do so, of whom a few families 
are established rather than camped in the different villages 
of the country. These strangers adopt the language of the 
country as they adopt the religion. Those of Werst form 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


33 


a sort of little clan, under the authority of a voivode, with 
their huts, their “ barakas” with pointed roofs, their legions 
of children, so different in the manners and regularity of 
their life from those of their congeners who wander about 
Europe. They even belong to the Greek Church, and 
conform to the 'religion of the Christians among whom 
they have settled As religious head YVerst has a pope, 
who resides at Vulkan, and superintends the two villages, 
which are only half a mile apart. 

Civilization is like air or water. Wherever there is a 
passage, be it only a fissure, it will penetrate and modify 
the conditions of a country. But it must be admitted that 
no fissure has yet been found through this southern portion 
of the Carpathians. Vulkan, as Elisee Reclus says, is “ the 
last post of civilization in the valley of the Wallachian Syl, 
and we need not be astonished at Werst being one of the 
most backward villages of the county of Kolosvar. And 
how could it be otherwise in these places, where every one 
is born and lives and dies without ever leaving them ? 

But perhaps you will say there is a schoolmaster and a 
judge at Werst? Yes, without doubt. But Magister 
Hermod was only able to teach what he knew—that is, to 
read a little, to write a little, to reckon a little. His per¬ 
sonal instruction did not go beyond that. Of science, 
history, geography, literature, he knew nothing beyond the 
popular songs and legends of the surrounding country. In 
that respect his memory was richly stored. He was strong 
in matters of romance, and the few scholars of the village 
gained great profit from his lessons. 


D 


34 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


As to the judge, we may as well say something con¬ 
cerning this chief magistrate of VVerst. 

The biro, Master Koltz, was a little man, of from fifty- 
five to sixty years old, a Roumanian by birth, his hair 
close cut and grey, his moustache still black, his eyes more 
gentle than fiery. Solidly built, like a mountaineer, he 
wore the large felt hat on his head, the high belt with 
ornamental buckle round his waist, the sleeveless vest, and 
the short baggy breeches tucked into his high leather boots. 
As much mayor as judge, for his functions obliged him to 
intervene in the many disputes between neighbour and 
neighbour, he was chiefly occupied in administering his 
village with a great show of authority, and not without 
some benefit to his purse. In fact, all transactions, pur¬ 
chases or sales, were subject to a tax for his benefit, to say 
nothing of the tolls with which travellers for pleasure or 
trade filled his pocket. 

This lucrative position kept Master Koltz in easy cir¬ 
cumstances. If most of the peasants of the country were 
ground down by the usury of the Israelitish money-lenders, 
who were the real proprietors of the soil, the biro had 
managed to escape. His goods were free from hypotheca¬ 
tions, “ intabulations,” as they are called in the country; 
and he owed nothing. He would rather have lent than 
borrowed, and would certainly have done so without 
fleecing the poor people. He owned several pasturages, 
good grazing grounds for his flocks; lands under fair 
cultivation, although he would have nothing to do with 
the new methods ; vineyards which flattered his vanity 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 3s 

when he walked down the lines of stocks covered with the 
grapes he sold at a goodly profit, although he retained a 
fair proportion for his private consumption. 

It need not be said that the house of Master Koltz was 
the best in the village, at the angle of the terrace which 
crossed the long road as it ascended. A stone house, if 
you please, with its fa9ada continued round on to the 
garden; its door between the third and fourth windows, 
with the festoons of verdure bordering the gutter with 
their slender branchlets ; with the two great beech-trees 
spreading their boughs above the flowery thatch. Behind 
lay a fine orchard, with its beds of vegetables like a chess¬ 
board, and its rows of fruit-trees skirting the slope of the 
hill. Inside the house were fine clean rooms, some to d'ne 
in, some to sleep in, with their painted furniture, tables 
beds, benches and stools, their sideboards, on which shone 
the pots and dishes ; the beams of the ceiling, from which 
hung vases decorated with ribbons and gaily-coloured 
stuffs ; the heavy coffers, covered with cloths and quilts, 
which served as chests and cupboards, the white walls, the 
highly-coloured portraits of Roumanian patriots—amongst 
others the popular hero of the fifteenth century, the voivode 
Vayda-Hunyad. 

It was a charming house, which would have been too 
large for a man by himself. But Master Koltz was not 
alone. A widower for twelve years, he had a daughter, 
the lovely Miriota, who was much admired from Werst to 
Vulkan, and even beyond. She might have been called 
by one of those strange Pagan names, Florica, Daina, 

D 2 


36 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


Danritia, which are much in honour in Wallachian families. 
But no ! she was Miriota ; that is to say, the little sheep. 
But she had grown, this little sheep, and was now a grace¬ 
ful girl of twenty, fair, with brown eyes, a gentle look, 
charming features, and a pleasing figure. In truth, she 
could not look other than attractive, with her chemisette 
embroidered with red thread up to the collar and on the 
wrists and on the shoulders, her petticoat clasped by a 
belt with silver buckles, her “ catrinza,” or double apron, 
with red and blue stripes, knotted to her waist, her little 
boots of yellow leather, the light handkerchief on her head, 
her long hair floating behind her, the plait of which was 
ornamented with a ribbon or a metal clasp. 

Yes ! a handsome girl was Miriota Koltz, and—no harm 
to her—she was rich, that is, for this village lost in the 
depths of the Carpathians. A good manager ? Un¬ 
doubtedly ; for she managed her father’s house in intelli¬ 
gent fashion. Was she educated? Yes; at Magister 
Her mod’s school she had learnt to read, to write, to 
cipher, and she ciphered, wrote, and read correctly ; but 
she had not been pushed very far—and there were reasons 
for it. On the other hand, she knew about as much as 
was to be known of the Transylvanian traditions and sagas. 
She knew as much as her master. She knew the legend 
of Leany-Ko, the Rock of the Virgin, in which a rather 
fanciful princess escapes from the pursuit of the Tartars ; 
the legend of the Dragon’s Cave in the Valley of the 
King’s Stairs ; the legend of the fortress of Deva, which 
was built in the “days of the Fairies ; ” the legend of the 





A handsome 


airl was Miriota Koltz. 


Page 36 





































































































































The news had spread in the village 


Page 41 
































































































































































































The Castle of the Carpathians. 37 

Detunata, the “Thunderclap, 1 * that famous basaltic moun¬ 
tain like a gigantic stone fidJle, on which the devil plays 
on stormy nights ; the legend of. Retyezat, with its sum¬ 
mit cut down by a witch ; the legend of the Valley of 
Thorda, which was cleft by the stroke of the sword of 
Saint Ladislas. We must confess that Miriota believed 
in all these mythological fictions ; but she was none the 
less a charming and amiable girl. 

A good many young men of the district found her so, 
even without considering that she was the only heiress 
of the biro, Master Koltz, the first magistrate of Werst. 
But there was no use in paying her attentions. Was she 
not already engaged to Nicolas Deck ? 

A handsome type of Roumanian was this Nicolas, or, 
rather, Nic Deck, twenty-five years of age, tall, strong in 
constitution, head well set on his shoul Jers, hair black, 
covered by the white kolpak, look clear and frank, bearing 
himself well under his vest of lambskin embroidered with 
needlework, well set on his slender legs, legs as of a deer, 
and an air of determination in his gait and gestures. He 
was a forester by trade ; that is to say, almost as much a 
soldier as a civilian. As he owned a little land under 
cultivation in the environs of Werst he was approved of 
by the father, and as he was a good-looking, well-made 
fellow he was approved of by the daughter, with whom he 
was deeply in love. He would not allow any one to 
attempt to rival him, nor to look at her too closely—and 
no one thought of doing so. 

The marriage of Nic Deck and Miriota Koltz was 


38 Tiie Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

to take place in a fortnight, towards the middle of the 
approaching month. On that occasion the village would 
hold a general holiday. Master Koltz would do the thing 
properly. He was no miser. If he liked getting money, 
he did not refuse to spend it when opportunity offered. 
When the ceremony was over Nic Deck would take 
up his residence in the house which would be his 
when the biro was gone; and when Miriota knew he 
was near her, perhips she would cease to fear, as she 
heard the creak of a door or the rattling of a window 
in the long winter nights, that some phantom escaped 
from her favourite legends was about to put in an 
appearance. 

To complete the list of the notables of Werst, we must 
mention two more, and these not the least important, the 
schoolmaster and the doctor. 

Magister Hermod was a big man in spectacles, about 
forty-five years old, having always between his lips the 
curved stem of his pipe with the porcelain bowl, his hair 
thin and disordered on a flattish head, his face hairless, 
with a twitching in the left cheek. His great occupation 
was cutting the pens of his pupils, whom he forbade to 
use steel pens on principle. But how he lengthened the 
nibs with his old pointed pocket-knife ! With what pre¬ 
cision and winking of his eyes did he give the final touch by 
cutting the point! Above everything good handwriting— 
to that all his e/forts were directed ; it was to that that a 
schoolmaster careful of his mission should urge his pupils. 
Instruction was of secondary importance—and we know 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


39 

what Magister Ilermod taught and what the generations of 
boys and girls learnt on the benches of his school. 

And now for the turn of Doctor Patak. What! a doc¬ 
tor at Werst, and yet the village still believed in the 
supernatural ? 

Yes ; but we may as well be clear as to the title borne 
by Doctor Patak as we had to be regarding that borne by 
Judge Koltz. 

Patak was a little man with a prominent corporation, 
short and fat, aged about forty-five, ostensibly acting as 
medical adviser in Werst and its neighbourhood. With 
his imperturbable self-confidence, his deafening loquacity, 
he inspired no less confidence than the shepherd Frik— 
and that is not saying little. He dealt in consultations 
and drugs ; but so harmless were they that they made no 
worse the petty ailments of his patients, who would have 
got well had they been left to themselves. People aie 
healthy enough in these parts ; the air is of the first quality, 
epidemic maladies are there unknown ; if people die it is 
because they must, even in this privileged corner of Tran^yl- 
vania. As to Doctor Patak—yes, they called him doctor* 
—although he was accepted as such, he had had no educa¬ 
tion either in medicine or in pharmacy or in anything. He 
was merely an old quarantine attendant, whose occupation 
consisted in looking after the travellers detained on the 
frontier for health purposes. Nothing more. That, it 
appeared, was enough for the easy-going people of Werst. 
It should be added—and there is nothing surprising in it— 
that Doctor Patak was a wideawake fellow, as is usually 


40 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

the case with one who has to look after other people. 
And he believed in none of the superstitions current in the 
Carpathian district, not even in those that were cherished 
in the village. He laughed at them, he made fun of them. 
And when he was told that no one had dared to approach 
the castle from time immemorial, he would say,— 

“ You must not dare me to visit the old hovel! ” 

But as- they did not dare him, as they carefully kept 
from daring him, Doctor Patak had never been there, and 
with the help of credulity the Castle of the Carpathians 
remained enveloped in impenetrable mystery. 


CHAPTER IV. 


In a few minutes the news brought by the shepherd had 
spread in the village. Master Koltz, carrying the precious 
telescope, went back into his house, followed by Nic Deck 
and Miriota. There now remained on the terrace only 
Frik surrounded by about twenty men, women, and 
children, among whom were a few Tsiganes, who were not 
the least excited among the Werst population. They 
surrounded Frik, they bombarded him with questions, and 
the shepherd replied with the superb importance of a man 
who had just seen something quite extraordinary. 

“Yes!” he repeated, “the castle was smoking, it still 
smokes, and it will smoke until not one stone of it remains 
on another. ’ 

“ But who could have lighted the fire ? ” asked an old 
woman with her hands clasped. 

“ The Chort! ” said Frik, giving the devil the name he 
is known by in the district. “ And he is the rascal who 
knows how to light a fire much better than how to put it 
out! ” 

And at that reply every one looked to try and find the 
smoke on the top of the donjon. In the end most of them 


42 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


affirmed they could distinguish it perfectly, although it was 
quite invisible at that distance. 

The effect produced by this singular phenomenon 
exceeded everything imaginable. It is necessary to insist 
on this point. The reader must put himself in the place 
of the people of Werst and he will not be astonished at 
what follows. I do not ask him to believe in the super¬ 
natural, but to understand that this ignorant people 
believed in it without reservation. To the mistrust inspired 
by the Castle of the Carpathians, which up to then was 
supposed to be deserted, was to be added the terror that 
it now seemed to be inhabited, and by such beings ! Good 
heavens ! 

There was at Werst a meeting-place frequented by 
drinkers, and even beloved by those who, without drinking, 
delighted in talking over matters at the close of the day— 
the latter in small numbers, be it understood. This place, 
open to all, was the chief, or rather the only, inn in the 
village. 

Who was the proprietor of this inn? A Jew of the 
name of Jonas, a fine fellow of about sixty, of pleasing 
physiognomy, although rather Semitic, with black eyes, 
hook nose, long lip, smooth hair, and the traditional beard. 
Obsequious and obliging, he willingly lent little sums to 
one or the other without being too particular as to security 
nor too usurious as regards interest, although he expected 
to be paid on the dates fixed by the borrower. Would to 
heaven that the Jews in Transylvania were always as 
accommodating as the innkeeper of Werst! 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


43 


Unfortunately this excellent Jonas was an exception. 
His fellows in religion, his brethren by profession—for 
they are all innkeepers, selling drinks and groceries—carry 
on the trade of money-lenders with a bitterness that is not 
promising for the future of the Roumanian peasant. 
Gradually the land is passing from the native to the 
foreigner. In default of being repaid their advances, the 
Jews are becoming the proprietors of the finest farms 
mortgaged to their advantage ; and if the Promised Land 
is not to be that of Israel, it may one day make its appear¬ 
ance on the maps of Transylvanian geography. 

The inn of the “King Mathias such is its name— 
occupies one of the corners of the terrace which crosses 
the main street of Werst, and is immediately opposite the 
biro’s house. It is an old structure, half wood, half stone, 
much patched in places, but a good deal covered with 
verdure, and of very attractive appearance. It consists 
only of the ground floor, with a glass door giving access 
to the terrace. Inside one first entered a large room 
furnished with tables for the glasses and benches for the 
drinkers, with a sideboard in varnished oak on which 
gleamed the dishes, pots, and bottles, and a counter of 
black wood, behind which Jonas stood ready for his 
customers. 

Light was obtained from two windows which were in 
the wall facing the terrace, and two others opposite each 
other in the outer walls. Of these, one was veiled by a thick 
curtain of climbing and hanging plants, which screened 
the outer view and only allowed a little light to pass, 


44 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


while the other when opened gave an extensive view over 
the lower valley of the Vulkan. A few feet below it rolled 
the tumultuous waters of the Nyad torrent. On one side 
the torrent descended the slopes of the range from its rise 
on the plateau of Orgall, which was crowned by the castle 
buildings; on the other, abundantly fed by the mountain 
streams, even during summer time it flowed along to the 
Wallachian Syl, which absorbed it in its course. 

On the right, adjoining the large room, a half-dozen of 
small rooms were enough to accommodate the few travellers 
who before crossing'the frontier desired to rest at the “ King 
Mathias,” They were sure of a good welcome at moderate 
charges, from an attentive and obliging landlord, who was 
always well provided with good tobacco, which he bought 
in the best “ trafiks ” of the neighbourhood. As for Jonas 
himself, he occupied a narrow attic, the old-fashioned 
window of which patched the thatch with flowers, and 
looked out on to the terrace. 

In this inn, on this very night of the 29th of May, there 
were gathered all the wise-heads of Werst—Master Koltz, 
Magister Ilermod, the forester Nic Deck, a dozen of the 
chief inhabitants, and also the shepherd Frik, who was 
not the least important of these personages. Doctor 
Patak was absent from this meeting of notables. Sent 
for in all haste by one of his old patients who was only 
waiting for him in order to pass away into another world, 
he had agreed to come to the inn as soon as his attentions 
were no longer necessary to the defunct. 

While waiting for the doctor the company talked about 



“If the old castle wants to smoke, let it smoke.” 


Page 50 






















































































































































































They dared not even utter a word. 


Page 55 







































The Castle of the Carpathians. 


45 


the serious event of the day, but they did not talk without 
eating or drinking. To the hungry Jonas offered that 
kind of hasty pudding or maize pudding known under the 
name of “ mamaliga,” which is not at all disagreeable when 
taken with new milk. To the others he offered many a 
small glass of those strong liqueurs which roll like pure 
water down Roumanian thr ats, or “schnapps,” costing 
about a farthing a glass, and more particularly “ rakiou,” a 
strong spirit from plums, of which the consumption is 
considerable among the Carpathians. 

It should be mentioned that the landlord Jonas—it was 
the custom of the inn—only served the customers when 
they were sitting down, as he had observed that seated 
consumers consume more copiously than consumers on 
their feet. This e ening matters looked promising, for all 
the seats were full ; and Jonas was going from one table 
to another, jug in hand, filling up the glasses which were 
constantly empty. 

It was half-past eight in the evening. They had been 
talking since dusk without deciding what they should do. 
But they were agreed on one point, and that was that if 
the Castle of the Carpathians was inhabited by the un¬ 
known, it had become as dangerous to Werst as a powder- 
magazine would be at the gate of a town. 

“ It is a serious affair,” said Master Koltz. 

“ Very serious,” said the Magister, between two puffs of 
his inseparable pipe. 

“ Very serious,” said the company. 

“ There is no doubt,” said Jonas, “that the evil repute 


46 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


of the castle does much harm to the country round 
about—” 

“ And now,” said Magister Hermod, “there is this thing 
also—” 

“ Strangers do not come here often/’ said Master Koltz 
with a sigh. 

“And now they will not comeat all!” added Jonas, 
sighing in unison with the biro. 

“ Some of the people will be going away,” said one of 
the drinkers. 

“ I shall go first of all,” said a peasant from the outskirts ; 
“ and I will go as soon as I can sell my vines.” 

“ For which you will find no buyers, old man,” said the 
tavern-keeper. 

One can see what these worthies were driving at in their 
talk. Amid the personal terrors occasioned them by the 
Castle of the Carpathians, rose the anxiety for their 
interests so regrettably injured. If there were no more 
travellers, Jonas would suffer in the revenue of his inn. If 
there were no more strangers, Master Koltz would suffer 
in the receipt of the tolls, which gradually grew less. If 
there were no more buyers, the owners could not sell their 
lands even at a low price. That would last for years, and the 
situation, already very unsatisfactory, would become worse 

In fact, if it had been so while the spirits of the castle 
had kept out of sight, what would it be now that they had 
manifested their presence by material acts? 

Then the shepherd Frik thought he ought to say some¬ 
thing, but in a hc-sitating sort of way,— 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


47 


“ Perhaps we may have to—” 

“ What ? ” asked Master Koltz. 

“ Go there, master, and see.” 

The company looked at each other, and then lowered 
their eyes, and the question remained without reply. 

Then Jonas, addressing Master Koltz, took up the word 
in a firm voice. 

“Your shepherd,” he said, “has just pointed out the 
only thing we can do.” 

“ Go to the castle ? ” 

“Yes, my good friends,” said the innkeeper. “Ifthere 
is a smoke from the donjon chimney, it is because there is 
a fire, and if there is a fire it must have been lighted by a 
hand—” 

“A hand!—at least a claw!” said an old peasant, 
shaking his head. 

“ Hand or claw,” said the innkeeper, “ what does it 
matter ? We must know what it means. It is the first 
time that smoke has come out of the castle chimneys since 
Baron Rodolphe of Gortz left it.” 

“ But there might have been smoke without anybody 
noticing it,” said Master Koltz. 

“That I will never admit!” said Magister Hermod 
suddenly. 

“ But it might be,” replied the biro, “ if we had not got 
the telescope to watch what was happening at the castle.” 

It was well Slid. The phenomenon might have hap¬ 
pened frequently and escaped even the shepherd Frik, 
good as were his eyes. But anyhow, whether the said 


48 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

phenomenon were recent or not, it was certain that human 
beings were actually living at the Castle of the Carpathians ; 
and this fact constituted an extremely disturbing state of 
things for the inhabitants of Vulkan and Werst. 

Then Magister Hermod made this remark in support of 
his belief,— 

“ Human beings, my friends ? You will allow me not to 
believe it. Why should human beings think of taking 
refuge in the castle? for what reason ? and how did they 
get there ? ” 

“ What do you think these intruders are, then ? ” ex¬ 
claimed Master Koltz. 

“Supernatural beings !” said Magister Ilermod in an 
imposing voice. “ Why should they not be spirits, goblins, 
perhaps even those dangerous lamias which present them¬ 
selves under the form of beautiful women ? ” 

During this enumeration every look was directed towards 
the door, towards the windows, or towards the chimney of 
the big saloon of the “ King Mathias.” And in truth the 
company asked themselves if they were not about to see 
one or other of these phantoms successively evoked by the 
schoolmaster. 

“ However, my good friends,” said Jonas, “ if these beings 
are of that kind, I don’t understand why they should have 
lighted a fire, for they have no cooking to do—” 

“ And their sorceries ? ” said the shepherd. “ Do you 
forget that they want a fire for their sorceries ?” 

“ Evidently ! ” said the Magister in a tone which ad¬ 
mitted of no reply. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 49 

The reply was accepted without protest, and in the 
opinion of all there could be no doubt that it must be 
supernatural and not human beings who had chosen the 
Castle of the Carpathians as the scene of their operations. 

Up to this point Nic Deck had taken no part in the con¬ 
versation. He had been content to listen attentively to 
what was said by one and the other. The old castle with 
its mysterious walls, its ancient origin, its feudal appear¬ 
ance, had always inspired him with as much curiosity as 
respect. And being very brave, although he was as 
credulous as any inhabitant of Werst, he had more than 
once even manifested a desire to enter the old stronghold. 

As may be imagined, Miriota had obstinately set her 
face against so adventurous a project. He might have 
such ideas when he was free to do as he liked, but an 
engaged man was no longer his own master, and to embark 
in such adventures was the act of a madman, not of a 
lover. But notwithstanding her prayers, the lovely girl was 
always afraid that the forester would make some such 
attempt. What reassured her a little was that Nic Deck 
had not formally declared that he would go to the castle, 
for no one had sufficient influence over him to stop him— 
not even herself. She knew him to be an obstinate, 
resolute man, who would never go back on his promise. If 
he said a thing, the thing was as good as done. And 
Miriota would have been all anxiety had she suspected 
what the young man was thinking about. 

However, as Nic Deck said nothing, the shepherd’s 
proposition received no reply. Visit the Castle of the 

E 


/ 


50 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Carpathians now that it was haunted ? Who would be 
mad enough to do that ? And all those present dis¬ 
covered the best reasons for not doing anything. The 
biro was no longer of an age to venture over so rough a 
road. The magister had to look after his school. Jonas 
had to look after his inn. Frik had his sheep to attend 
to ; and the other peasants had to busy themselves with 
their cattle and their pastures. 

No! not one would venture, all of them saying to 
themselves,— 

“ He who dares go to the castle may never come back ! ” 

At this moment the door suddenly opened to the great 
alarm of the company. 

It was only Doctor Patak, and it would have been diffi¬ 
cult to mistake him for one of those bewitching lamias of 
whom Magister Hermod had been speaking. 

His patient being dead—which did honour to his 
medical acumen, if not to his talent—Doctor Patak had 
hurried on to the meeting at the “ King Mathias.’' 

“ Here he is at last! ” said Master Koltz. 

Doctor Patak hastily shook hands with everybody, much 
as if he were distributing drugs, and, in a somewhat ironical 
tone, remarked,— 

“ Then, my friends, it is the castle, the Castle of the Chort, 
you are busy about ! Oh ! you cowards. But if the old 
castle wants to smoke, let it smoke ! Does not our learned 
Hermod smoke, and smoke all day ? Really, the whole 
country is in a state of terror! I have heard of nothing 
else during my visits. Somebody has returned and made 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


Si 


a fire over there ! And why not, if they have got a cold 
in the head ? It would seem that it freezes in the month 
of May in the rooms of the donjon, unless there is some 
bread cooking for the other world. I suppose they want 
food in that place—that is if they come to life again ? 
Perhaps they are some of the heavenly bakers who have 
come to start their oven.” 

And so on in a series of jests that were much to the dis¬ 
taste of the Werst people, who made no attempt to stop him. 

At last the biro asked,— 

“And so, doctor, you attach no importance to what is 
taking place at the castle ?” 

“None, Master Koltz.” 

“ Have you never said you are ready to go there—if any 
one dared you to do so ? ” 

“ 1 ? ” answered the doctor, with a certain look of annoy¬ 
ance at any one reminding him of his words. 

“ Yes. Have you not said so more than once ?” asked 
the magister*. 

“ I have said so, certainly, and there is no need to 
repeat it.” 

“ But there is need to do it! ” said Hermod. 

“To do it?” 

“Yes ; and instead of daring you, we are content to ask 
you to do it,” added Master Koltz. 

“You understand—my friends, certainly—such a pro¬ 
posal—” 

“Well, since you hesitate,” said the innkeeper, we will 
not ask you—we dare you ! ” 


E 2 


52 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“Dare me?” 

“ Yes, doctor.” 

“Jonas,” said the biro, “you are going too far. There 
is no need to dare Patak. We know he is a man of his 
word. What he has said he will do—if only to render a 
service to the village and to the whole country.” 

“ But is this serious ? You want me to go to the Castle 
of the Carpathians?” said the doctor, whose red face had 
become quite pale. 

“ You cannot get out of it,” said Master Koltz. 

“ I beg you, my good friends—I beg you to be reason¬ 
able, if you please.” 

“ We are reasonable,” said Jonas. 

“ Be just, then. What is the use of my going there ? 
What shall I find ? A few good fellows have taken refuge 
in the castle, who are doing no harm to any one—” 

“Well,” replied Magister Hermod, “if they are good 
fellows you have nothing to fear from them, and it will be 
an opportunity for you to offer them your services.” 

“If they need them,” said Doctor Patak, “if they send 
for me, I should not hesitate to go to the castle. But I do 
not go without an invitation, and I do not pay visits for 
nothing.” 

“ We will pay you,” said Master Koltz, “ aod at so much 
an hour.” 

“ Who will pay me ? ” 

“ I will—we will—at any rate you like ! ” replied the 
majority of Jonas’s customers. 

Evidently, in spite of his bluster, the doctor was as big 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


53 


a coward as the rest of Worst. But after having posed as 
a superior person, after having ridiculed the popular 
legends, he found it difficult to refuse the service he was 
asked to render. But to go to the Castle of the Carpa¬ 
thians, even if he were paid for his journey, was in no way 
agreeable to him. He therefore endeavoured to show that 
the visit would produce no result, that the village was 
covering itself with ridicule in sending him to explore the 
castle—but his arguments hung fire. 

“Look here, doctor,” said Magister Hermod, “it seems 
to me you have absolutely nothing to fear. You do not 
believe in spirits ? ” 

“ No; I do not believe in them.” 

“ Well, then, if they are not spirits who have returned to 
the castle, they are human beings who have taken up their 
quarters there, and you can get oh all right with them.” 

The schoolmaster’s reasoning was logical enough ; it 
was difficult to get out of it. 

“Agreed, Hermod,” said the doctor ; “ but I might be 
detained at the castle.” 

“ Then you will be welcomed there,” said Jonas. 

“ Certainly ; but if my absence is prolonged, and if some 
one in the village wants me—” 

“ We are all wonderfully well,” said Master Koltz, “and 
there is not a single invalid in Werst now your last patient 
has taken his departure for the other world ” 

“ Speak frankly,” said the innkeeper. “ Will you go ? *’ 

“ No, I will not! ” said the doctor. “ Oh ! it is not be¬ 
cause I am afraid. You know I have no faith in these 


54 Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 

sorceries. The truth is, it seems to me absurd, and, L 
repeat, ridiculous. Because a smoke has appeared at the 
donjon chimney—a smoke which may not be a smoke— 
certainly not! I will not go to the Castle of the Car¬ 
pathians/’ 

“ I will go ! ” 

It was the forester Nic Deck who had suddenly joined 
in the conversation. 

“You, Nic ? ” exclaimed Master Koltz. 

“ I—but on condition that Patak goes with me.’ 7 

This was a direct thrust for the doctor, who gave a jump 
as if to avoid it. 

“You think that, forester? 7 ’ said he, “ I —to go with 
you? Certainly. It will be a pleasant expedition for both 
of us, if it is of any use. Look here, hfic, you know well 
enough there is no road to the castle. We shall not get 
there.” 

“ I have said I will go to the castle,” replied Nic Deck, 
“ and as I have said so I will go.” 

“ But I have not said so! ” exclaimed the doctor, 
struggling as if some one had gripped him by the collar. 

“ But you have ! ” said Jonas. 

“Yes ! yes !” replied the company unanimously. 

The doctor, pressed on all sides, did not know how to 
escape. Ah ! how much he regretted that he had so 
imprudently committed himself by his rodomontades. 
Never had he imagined they would have been taken 
seriously, or that he would have to account for them in 
person. And now there was no chance of escape without 


55 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

becoming the laughing-stock of Werst ; and in all the 
Vulkan district they would badger him unmercifully. He 
decided to accept the inevitable with a good grace. 

“ Well, since you wish it,” he said, “ I will go with 
Nic Deck, although it will be useless.” 

“Well done, Patak ! ” shouted all the company at the 
“ King Mathias.” 

“ And when shall we start, forester ? ” asked Doctor 
Patak, affecting to speak in a tone of indifference which 
poorly disguised his poltroonery. 

“ To-morrow morning,” said Nic Dec*. 

These last words were followed by a long silence which 
showed how real were the feelings of Master Koltz and 
the others. The glasses were empty, so were the pots, 
but no one rose, no one thought of leaving the place 
although it was late, nor of returning home. It occurred to 
Jonas that there was a good opportunity for serving another 
round of schnapps and rakiou. 

Suddenly a voice was heard distinctly amid the general 
silence, and these words were slowly pronounced,— 

“ Nicolas Deck, do not go to the castle to-morrow ! Do 
not go there, or misfortune will happen to you.” 

Who was it said this ? Whence came the voice which 
no one knew, and which seemed to come from an invisible 
mouth ? It could not be a voice from a phantom, a super¬ 
natural voice, a voice from another world. 

Terror was at its height. The men dared not look at 
one another ; they dared not even utter a word. 

The bravest—and that evidently was Nic Deck— 


56 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


endeavoured to discover what it all meant. It was evident 
that the words had been uttered in the room. The forester 
went up to the box and opened it. 

Nobody. 

He then looked into the rooms which opened into the 
saloon. 

Nobody. 

He opened the door, went outside, ran along the terrace 
to the main street of Werst. 

Nobody. 

A few minutes afterwards Master Koltz, Magister Her- 
mod, Doctor Patak, Nic Deck, Shepherd Frik, and the 
others had left the inn and its keeper Jonas, who hastened 
to double-lock the door. 

That night, as if they had been menaced by some 
apparition, the inhabitants of Werst strongly barricaded 
themselves in their houses. 

Terror reigned in the village. 


CHAPTER V. 


In the morning Nic Deck and D )ctor Patak prepared to 
start at nine o’clock. The forester’s intention was to 
ascend the Vulkan and take the shortest way to the 
suspicious castle. 

After the phenomenon of the smoke on the donjon, 
after the phenomenon of the voice heard in the saloon of 
the “ King Mathias,” we need not be astonished at the 
people being as if deranged. Some of the Tsiganes 
already spoke of leaving the district. During the night 
nothing else had been spoken of at home—and in a low 
voice. Could there be any doubt that it was the Chort 
who had spoken in so threatening a way to the young 
forester? At Jonas’s inn there had been about fifty 
people, and these the most worthy of belief, who had all 
heard the strange words. To suppose that they had all 
been duped by some illusion of the senses was inadmissible. 
There could be no doubt that Nic Deck had been formally 
warned that misfortune would overtake him if he persisted 
in his intention of visiting the Castle of the Carpathians. 

And yet the young forester was preparing to leave 
Werst, and without being forced to do so. In fact, what¬ 
ever advantage Master Koltz might gain in clearing up 


58 The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

the mystery of the castle, whatever interest the village 
might have in knowing what was taking place, a powerful 
effort had been made to get Nic Deck to go back on his 
word. Weeping and in despair, with her beautiful eyes 
wet with tears, Miriota had besought him not to persist in 
this adventure. After the warning given by the voice it 
was a serious matter ; it was a mad adventure. On the 
eve of his marriage Nic Deck was about to risk his life in 
the attempt, and his betrothed clung to his knees to 
prevent him, but all in vain. 

Neither the objurgations of his friends, nor the tears of 
Miriota had any effect on the young forester. 

And no one was surprised at it. They knew his 
indomitable character, his tenacity, his obstinacy, if you 
will. He had said he would go to the Castle of the Car¬ 
pathians, and nothing would stop him; not even the 
threat which had been addressed straight to him. Yes! 
he would go to the castle even if he never returned. 

When the hour of parting came, Nic Deck pressed 
Miriota for the last time to his heart, while the poor girl 
made the sign of the thumb and two first fingers, accord¬ 
ing to Roumanian custom, which is an emblem of the 
Holy Trinity. 

And Doctor Patak ? Well, Doctor Patak had tried to 
get out of it, but without success. All that could be said 
he had said. All the objections imaginable he had 
mentioned. He tried to entrench himself behind the 
formal injunction not to go to the castle, which had 
been so distinctly heard. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 59 

“ That menace only concerns me,” said Nic Deck. 

“ But if anything happens to you, forester,” said Doctor 
Patak, “ shall I get away without injury ? ” 

“Injury or not, you have promised to come with me 
to the castle, and you will come because I am going.” 

Seeing that nothing would prevent his keeping his 
promise, the people of Werst had resolved to help the 
forester. It was better that Nic Deck should not enter 
alone on this affair. And, much to his disgust, the doctor, 
feeling that he could not go back, that it would com¬ 
promise his position in the village, that it would be 
a disgrace for him to go back after all his boastings, 
resigned himself to the adventure with terror in his soul, 
and fully resolved to profit by the least obstacle on the 
road to make his companion turn back. 

Nic Deck and Doctor Patak set out, and Master Koltz, 
Magister Hermod, Frik, and Jonas accompanied them 
up to a turning out of the main road, where they 
stopped. 

Here Master Koltz for the last time brought his tele¬ 
scope—which he was never without—to bear on the castle. 
There was now no smoke from the donjon chimney, and 
it would have been easy to see it on the clear horizon of a 
beautiful spring morning. Were they to conclude that the 
guests, natural or supernatural, of the castle had vanished 
on finding that the forester took no heed of their threats ? 
Some of them thought so, and therein appeared a decisive 
reason for bringing the adventure to a satisfactory termina¬ 
tion. And so they all shook hands, and Nic Deck, 


6 o 


Tiie Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


dragging the doctor away with him, disappeared round the 
hill. 

The young forester was in full visiting costume, laced 
cap with large peak, belted vest with a cutlass in its 
sheath, baggy trousers, iron-shod boots, cartridge-belt at 
his waist, and long gun on his shoulder. He had the 
deserved reputation of being a first-rate shot, and in 
default of ghosts it was as well to be prepared for robbers, 
or even bears with evil intentions. 

The doctor had armed himself with an old flint pistol, 
which missed fire three times out of five. He also carried 
a hatchet which his companion had given him in case it 
was necessary to cut a way through the thick underwoods 
of Plesa. He wore a large country hat, and was buttoned 
up in a thick travelling cape, and shod with big iron-soled 
boots ; but this heavy costume would not have stopped him 
from running away if opportunity presented itself. 

Both he and Nic Deck carried a few provisions in their 
wallets, so as to prolong the exploration if necessary. 

After leaving the by-road, Nic Deck and the doctor 
went along the right bank of the Nyad for a few hundred 
yards. Had they followed the road which winds through 
the valleys, they would have gone too far to the westward. 
It was a pity they could not follow the river and thereby 
reduce their distance by a third, for the Nyad rises in the 
folds of the Orgall plateau. But though it was practicable 
at first, the bank became eventually so deeply cut into by 
ravines and barred with rocks that progress along it was 
impossible even to pedestrians. They had therefore to 



Many were the obstacles. 


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NEW YORK, ft, Y 






What more could they desire? 


Page 65 











































The Castle of the Carpathians. 6i 

bear away obliquely to the left, so as to return to the 
castle after traversing the lower belt of the Plesa 
forests. 

And this was the only side on which the castle was 
approachable from where they were. When it had been 
inhabited by Count Rodolphe de Gortz, the communica¬ 
tion between the village of Werst, the Vulkan Hill, and the 
valley of the Syl had been through a gap which had been 
opened in this direction. But abandoned for twenty years 
to the invasions of vegetation, it had become obstructed by 
an inextricable thicket of underwood, and the trace of a 
footpath or a passage would be sought for in vain. 

When they left the deep bed of the Nyad, which was 
filled with roaring water, Nic Deck stopped to take his 
bearings. The castle was no longer visible. It would 
only appear again beyond the curtain of forests which 
stood in rows one above the other on the lower slopes of 
the mountain, an arrangement common to the whole 
orographic system of the Carpathians. As there was no 
landmark the direction was not easily made out. It 
could only be arrived at from the position of the sun, 
whose rays were lighting up the distant crests in the south¬ 
west. 

“ You see, forester,” said the doctor, “ you see there is 
not even a road, or, rather, no more road.” 

There will be one/’ said Nic Deck. 

“ That is easy to say, Nic.” 

“ And easy to do, Patak.” 

“ You are resolved, then ? ” 


62 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


The forester was content to reply by an affirmative 
gesture, and started off towards the trees. 

The doctor had a strong inclination to retrace his steps, 
but his companion, happening to turn round, gave him 
such a determined look that he thought it better not to 
remain behind. 

Doctor Patak then conceived another hope : Nic Deck 
might get lost amid this labyrinth of woods, where his 
duties had not yet called him. But he reckoned without 
that marvellous scent, that professional instinct, that 
animal aptitude, so to speak, which takes notice of the 
least indications, projections of branches in such and 
such directions, irregularities of the ground, colours 
of the bark, hues of the mosses as they are exposed 
to different winds. Nic Deck was a perfect master of 
his trade, and practised it with too much sagacity to go 
astray even in localities unknown to him. He was worthy 
to be ranked with Leatherstocking or Chingachgook in 
the land of Cooper. 

But the crossing of this zone of trees was not free from 
real difficulties. Elms, beeches, a few of those maples known 
as false planes, mighty oaks, occupied the first line up to 
the line of the birches, pines, and spruces, massed on the 
higher shoulders of the col to the left. Magnificent 
were these trees with their powerful stems, their boughs 
warm with the new sap, their thick leafage intermingling 
to form a roof of verdure which the sun’s rays could not 
pierce. 

By stooping beneath their lower branches a passage was 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 63 

relatively easy ; but many were the obstacles on the 
surface of the ground, and much work was needed to clear 
them away, to get through the nettles and briars, to avoid 
the thousands of thorns that clung to them at the least 
touch. Nic Deck was not a man to become anxious about 
these matters ; and, providing he got through the wood, 
he did not worry himself about a few scratches. The 
advance, however, under such conditions was necessarily 
slow, and that was regrettable, for Nic Deck and Doctor 
Patak wished to reach the castle in the afternoon, in order 
that they might return to Werst before night. 

Hatchet in hand, the forester worked at clearing a 
passage through these thick thorn-bushes, bristling with 
vegetable bayonets, in which the foot met a rugged soil, 
hummocky, broken, with roots or stumps to stumble over 
when it did not sink in a swampy bed of dead leaves 
which the wind had never swept away. Myriads of pods 
shot off like fulminating peas to the great alarm of the 
doctor, who started back at the crackle, and came again 
when some twig would catch on to his vest like a claw that 
wished to keep him. No! poor man, he was not at all 
comfortable. But now he dared not return alone, and he 
had to make an effort to keep up with his intractable 
companion. 

Occasionally capricious clearings appeared in the forest. 
A shower of light woul J penetrate it. A couple of black 
storks, disturbed in their solitude, escaped from the higher 
branches and flew off with powerful strokes of the wing 
The crossing of these clearings made the advance still more 


64 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

fatiguing. In them were piled up enormous masses of 
trees blown down by the storm or fallen from old age, as if 
the axe of the woodman had given them their death-stroke. 
There lay enormous trunks eaten into with decay, which 
no tool would ever cut into billets, and no waggon would 
ever carr,y to the bed of the Wallachian Syl. Faced by 
these obstacles, which were difficult to clear and at times 
impossible to turn, Nic Deck and his companion had no 
easy time of it. If the young forester, active, supple, 
vigorous, managed well, the doctor with his short legs, his 
large corporation, breathless and exhausted, could not save 
himself from occasional falls, and Nic had to come to his 
assistance. 

“You will see, Nic, that I shall end by breaking one of 
my limbs ! ” he said. 

“You will soon patch it up, if you do/’ 

“ Come, forester, be reasonable; we need not strive 
against the impossible ! ” 

But Nic Deck was already on in front, and the doctor, 
obtaining no reply, hastened to rejoin him. 

Were they in the right direction to come out in front of 
the castle ? They would have been puzzled to prove it. 
But as the ground was on the rise all the time, they must 
be reaching the edge of the forest; and they arrived there 
at three o’clock in the afternoon. 

Beyond, up to the plateau of Orgall extended the 
curtain of green trees, much more scattered the farther 
they were up the mountain. / 

The Nyad appeared among the rocks, either because it 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


65 


had curved to the north-west, or because Nic Deck had 
struck off obliquely towards it. The young forester was 
thus assured he had made a 'good course, for the brook 
took its rise in the Orgall plateau. 

Nic Deck could not refuse the doctor an hour's rest on 
the bank of the torrent. Besides, the stomach claimed its 
due as well as the limbs. The wallets were well furnished ; 
rakiou filled the doctor’s flask as well as Nic’s. Besides, 
water, fresh and limpid, filtered amid the pebbles below, 
and flowed a few paces off. What more could they 
desire ? They had lost much ; they must repair the 
loss. 

Since their departure the doctor had scarcely had the 
leisure to talk with Nic Deck, who had been in front of 
him all the time. But he made up for lost time when 
they were seated on the bank of the Nyad. If one was 
not talkative, the other fully made up for it; and we need 
not be astonished if the questions were prolix and the 
answers brief. 

“ Let us talk a little, forester, and talk seriously,” said 
the doctor. 

“ I am listening to you,” replied Nic Deck. 

“ I think we halted here to recover our strength ? n 

“Nothing could be more correct.” 

“ Before returning to Werst ? ” 

“ No ; before going to the castle.” 

“ But, Nic, we have been walking for six hours, and we 
are hardly halfway.” 

“ That shows we have no time to lose.” 

F 


66 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“ But we shall not reach the castle before night, and as 
I imagine, forester, you will not be mad enough to run 
any risks until you have had a clear view of it, we shall 
have to wait for daylight.” 

“ We will wait for daylight.” 

“ And so you will not give up this project, which has no 
common sense in it ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ What! Here we are exhausted, wanting a good table 
in a good room, and a good bed in a good room, and you 
are going to pass the night in the open air? ” 

“Yes, if any obstacle prevents us from penetrating into 
the castle.” 

“And if there is no obstacle ?” 

“We will sleep in the rooms in the donjon.” 

“ The rooms in the donjon ! ” exclaimed Doctor Patak. 
“ Do you think, forester, that I shall ever consent to spend 
a whole night inside that cursed castle ? ” 

“ Certainly, unless you prefer to stay outside alone.” 

w Alone, forester! That was not in the bargain ; and if 
we are to separate, I would rather start at once and go 
back to the village.” 

“ It was in the bargain that you would follow me into 
the castle.” 

“ In the day, yes ! In the night, no ! ” 

“ Well, you can go if you like ; but take care you do not 
get lost in the thickets.” 

Lost! That was what troubled the doctor. Abandoned 
to himself, unaccustomed to these interminable circuits in 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 67 

the Plesa forests, he felt he was incapable of finding the 
way back to Werst. Besides, to be alone when night fell— 
a very dark night, perhaps—to descend the slopes of the 
hill at the risk of collapsing in the bottom of a ravine, that 
certainly was not agreeable to him. He was freed from 
having to enter the castle when the sun was down, and if 
the forester persisted, he had better follow him up to the 
enclosure. But the doctor made a last effort to stop his 
companion. 

“ You know well, my dear Nic,” he continued, “ that I 
will never consent to separate from you. If you persist 
in going to the castle, I will not allow you to go there 
alone.” 

“ Well spoken, Doctor Patak, and I think you ought to 
stick to that.”' 

“ No ! One word more, Nic. If it is night when we 
arrive, promise me not to try and enter the castle.” 

“ What I promise you, doctor, is not to go back one 
footstep until I have discovered what is going on there.” 

“ What is going on there, forester ! ” said Doctor Patak, 
shrugging his shoulders. “ But what do you want to go 
on there ? ” 

“ I know nothing, and as I have made up my mind to 
know, I will know.” 

“ But shall we ever reach this devil’s castle ? ” asked the 
doctor, whose arguments were exhausted. “ To judge by 
the difficulty we have had up to now, and the time it has 
taken us to get through the Plesa forests, the day will end 
before we are in sight of the wall.” 


63 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“Ido not think so,” said Nic Deck. “In the higher 
ranges the pines have no such thickets as do the elms or 
maples or beeches.” 

“ But the ground is rough.” 

“What does that matter, if it is not impracticable ?” 

“ But I believe that bears are met with on the outskirts 
of the plateau.” 

“ I have my gun, and you have your pistol to defend 
yourself with, doctor.” 

“ But if night falls we may be lost in the darkness.” 

“ No; for we now have a guide, which guide will, I hope, 
not leave us any more.” 

“ A guide ? ” exclaimed the doctor. And he rose 
abruptly to cast an anxious look around him. 

“Yes,” said Nic, “and this guide is the Nyad. We 
have only to go up the right bank to reach the very crest 
of the plateau where it takes its source. I think we shall 
be at the castle gate in two hours, if we get on the road 
without delay.” 

“ In two hours if not in six ! ” replied the doctor. 

“ Are you ready ? ” 

“Already? Nic, already? Why, our halt has only 
lasted a few minutes—” 

“ A few minutes which make a good half-hour. For the 
last time, are you ready ? ” 

“Ready—when my legs are like lumps of lead? You 
know well enough, Nic Deck, my legs are not forester’s legs. 
My feet are swollen in my boots, and it is cruel to make 
me follow you—” 



To help over rocks too high for his little legs 


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He heard the nyctalops. 


Page 77 





















The Castle or the Carpathians. 69 

“ Ah ! You annoy me, Patak ! You can go back alone 
if you like ! Pleasant journey to you ! ” 

And Nic rose. 

“ For the love of God, forester,” cried Doctor Patak, 
“ listen to me.” 

“ Listen to your foolery ? ” 

“ It is already late, why not remain here ? why not 
encamp under the shelter of these trees ? We can start 
at daylight, and have all the morning to reach the plateau.” 

“ Doctor,” replied Nic Deck, “ I tell you again it is my 
intention to spend the night in the castle.” 

“ No !” cried the doctor ; “no, you shall not do it, Nic ! 
I will stop you—” 

“ You ? ” 

“ I will cling to you ! I will drag you back! I will 
thrash you, if necessary ! ” 

The unfortunate doctor did not know what he was 
saying. 

As to Nic Deck, he did not even reply. Putting his 
arm through the gun-strap, he started to go up the Nyad. 

“ Wait—wait! ” cried the doctor piteously. “ What a 
fiend of a man ! One moment! My limbs are stiff, my 
joints will not work.” 

But they soon had to work, for the doctor had to trot 
along on his little legs to catch up the forester, who never 
looked back. 

It was four o’clock. The solar rays just tipped the crest of 
Plesa, which intercepted them, and by an oblique reflection 
lighted up the higher branches of the pine-forest. Nic 


70 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


Deck had cause to hurry, for the woods below were growing 
dark at the decline of day. 

Of a different character were the higher forests, which con¬ 
sisted mainly of the commoner Alpine species. Instead of 
being deformed and twisted and gnarled, the stems were 
straight and upright and far apart, and bare of branches 
for fifty or sixty feet from their roots, and then their ever¬ 
green verdure spread out like a roof. There was little 
brushwood or entanglement,at their base; but the long 
roots crept along the ground as if they were snakes grown 
torpid with the cold. The ground was carpeted with 
close yellowish moss, scattered over with dry twigs, and 
dotted with cones which crackled under the feet. The slope 
was rough and furrowed with crystalline rocks, the sharp 
edges of which made themselves felt through the thickest 
leather. For a quarter of a mile the passage through the 
pine-wood was difficult. To climb these blocks required 
a suppleness, a vigour, and a sureness of foot which Doctor 
Patak could no longer claim. Nic Deck would have got 
through in an hour if he had been alone, but it took him 
three with the hindrance of his companion, whom he had 
to stop to attend to, and to help over rocks too high 
for his little legs. The doctor had but one fear—a 
terrible fear—that of being left alone in these gloomy 
solitudes. 

However, if the slopes became more painful to climb, 
the trees began to get thinner and thinner on the Plesa 
ridge. They were now in isolated clumps and of small 
size. Between these clumps could be seen the ranges of 


The Castle of the Carpathians. yi 

mountains in the background, with their outline still 
traceable in the evening mist. 

The torrent of the Nyad, which the forester had con¬ 
tinued to follow, was now not larger than a brook, and 
rose not so very far off. A few hundred feet above the 
last folds of the ground lay the rounded plateau of Orgall, 
crowned by the castle buildings. 

Nic Deck at length reached the plateau after a final 
effort which reduced the doctor to the state of an inert 
mass. The poor man had not strength to drag him¬ 
self twenty yards farther, and he fell like the ox before the 
axe of the butcher. 

Nic Deck hardly felt the fatigue of this painful ascent. 
Erect, motionless, he devoured with his gaze this Castle of 
the Carpathians he had never before been so near. 

Before his eyes lay a crenellated wall defended by a 
deep ditch, the only drawbridge of which was drawn up 
against a gate surrounded by a ring of stone. 

Around the wall, on the plateau, all was bare and 
silent. 

In the twilight the mass of castle buildings was con¬ 
fusedly distinguishable. There was no one visible on 
either wall or donjon, nor on the circular terrace. Not a 
trace of smoke curled round the vane. 

“Well, forester,” said Doctor Patak, “are you convinced 
that it is possible to cross the ditch, lower the drawbridge, 
and open the gate ? ” 

Nic Deck did not reply. He saw that it would be 
necessary to halt before the castle walls. Amid the dark- 


72 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


ness, how could he descend into the ditch and climb the 
slope so as to enter the wall ? Evidently the best thing to 
do was to wait for the coming dawn, and work in broad 
daylight. 

And that was what it was decided to do, to the great 
annoyance of the forester and the extreme satisfaction of 
the doctor. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The thin crescent of the moon, like a silver sickle, dis¬ 
appeared almost as soon as the sun set. A few clouds 
rising in the west, soon extinguished the last gleams of 
twilight. Darkness gradually rose from below and covered 
all. The ring of mountains was blotted out in obscurity, 
and the castle soon disappeared beneath the pall of 
night. 

If the night promised to be very dark, there was nothing 
to indicate that it would be troubled by any atmospheric 
disturbance, rain or storm ; and this was fortunate for 
Nic Deck and his companion, who were about to encamp 
in the open air. 

There was no clump of trees on this barren plateau of 
Orgall. Here and there were a few shrubs, which afforded 
no shelter against the nocturnal cold. There were rocks in 
plenty, some half-buried in the ground, others in such a 
state of equilibrium that the slightest push would have 
sent them rolling down into the fir-woods. 

The only plant that grew in profusion on the rocky soil 
was the thistle known as Russian thorn, whose seeds, says 
Elisee Rcclus, were carried in their coats by the Muscovite 


74 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

horses—“ a present of cheerful conquest which the Russians 
gave the Transylvanians.” 

A search was made for a more comfortable place in 
which to pass the night, and which would afford some 
shelter against the fall in temperature which is remarkable 
in these altitudes. 

“We have more than chances enough—to be miserable ! ” 
murmured Doctor Patak. 

“ Are you not satisfied, then ? ” asked Nic Deck. 

" Certainly not ! What a splendid place to catch a 
good cold or the rheumatism, which I do not know how I 
shall ever get cured of! ” 

A very artless confession on the part of the old quaran¬ 
tine officer. How he regretted his comfortable little house 
at Werst, with its room so snug and its bed so well furnished 
with pillows and counterpane ! 

Among the stones on the Orgall plateau one had to be 
selected whose position offered the best shelter against the 
south-west wind, which was beginning to freshen. This 
was what Nic Deck did, and soon the doctor joined him 
behind a large rock which was as flat as a table on its 
upper surface. 

This stone was one of those stone benches amid the 
scabiouses and saxifrages which are frequently met with 
at the turnings of the road in Wallachia. While the 
traveller sits on them he can quench his thirst with the 
water contained in a vase placed on them, and which is 
every day renewed by the country people. When Baron 
Rodolphe de Gortz lived at the castle, this bench bore a 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


75 


bowl which the family servants never left empty. But 
now it was dirty and worn and covered with green mosses, 
and the least shock would have reduced it to dust. 

At the end of the seat rose a granite shaft, the remains 
of an ancient cross, nothing being left of the arms, 
although a half-effaced groove showed where they had 
been. 

Doctor Patalc, being a strong-minded man, was unable 
to admit that this cross could protect him against super¬ 
natural apparitions. But by an anomaly common to a 
good many of the incredulous, although he did not believe 
in God, he was not very far from believing in the devil. 
In his heart he believed the Chort was not far off; he it 
was that haunted the castle, and neither the closed gate, 
the raised drawbridge, the lofty wall, nor the deep ditch 
would keep him from coming out, if the fancy took him, to 
come and twist both their necks. 

And when the doctor saw that he had to spend a whole 
night under these conditions, he shuddered with terror. 
No ! It was too much to require of a human creature, and 
it would be more than the most energetic of characters 
could bear. 

And then an idea came to him tardily—an idea he had 
not thought of before he left Werst. It was Thursday 
evening, and on that day the people of the district, the 
country people, were careful not to go out after sundown. 
Thursday they knew to be a day of evil deeds. Their 
legends told them that if they ventured abroad on that day, 
they ran the risk of meeting with some evil spirit. And 


76 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

so no one moved about on the roads and by-ways after 
nightfall. 

And here was Doctor Patak not only away from home, 
but close to a haunted castle, two or three miles from the 
village. And here he would have to stop until the dawn 
came—if it ever came again ! In truth, this was simply 
tempting the devil! 

Deep in these thoughts, the doctor saw the forester care¬ 
fully take out of his bag a piece of cold meat, after having 
a good drink from his flask. The best thing, it occurred 
to him, was to do likewise, and he did so. A leg of a 
goose, a thick slice of bread, the whole well moistened 
with rakiou, was the least he could take to revive his 
strength. But if that calmed his hunger, it did not calm 
his fears. 

“ Now let us sleep,” said Nic Deck, as soon as he had 
put his bag at the foot of the stone. 

“ Sleep, forester ? ” 

“ Good-night, doctor.” 

“ Good-night—that is easy to wish, but I am afraid it wilj 
not end well.” 

Nic Deck, being in no humour for conversation, made 
no reply. Accustomed by his vocation to sleep amid the 
woods, he threw himself down close to the stone seat and 
was soon in a deep sleep. And the doctor could but 
grumble between his teeth when he heard his companion 
breathing at regular intervals. 

As for him, it was impossible for him for some minutes 
to deaden his senses of hearing and seeing. In spite 



< < 


Am I a corpse like you? 


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He went obliquely down 


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The Castle of the Carpathians. 77 

of his fatigue he continued to see and to listen. His brain 
was a prey to those extravagant visions which are due to 
the troubles of insomnia. 

What was he looking for in the depths of darkness ?— 
the hazy shapes of the objects which surrounded him, the 
scattered clouds across the sky, the almost imperceptible 
mass of the castle ? The rocks on the Orgall plateau 
seemed to be moving in a sort of infernal saraband. And 
if they were to crumble on their bases, slip down the slope, 
roll on to the two adventurers, and crush them at the castle 
gate to which admission was denied them ! 

The unhappy doctor got up; he listened to the noises 
which are ever present on lofty table-lands—those dis¬ 
quieting murmurs which seem to whisper and groan and 
sigh. He heard the nyctalops fanning the rocks with 
frenzied wing, the stryges in their nocturnal flight, and two 
or three pairs of funereal owls whose hooting echoed 
like a cry of pain. Then his muscles contracted all 
at once, and his body trembled, bathed in icy perspira¬ 
tion. 

In this way the long hours went by until midnight. If 
the doctor had been able to talk, to exchange but a few 
words now and then, to give free course to his recrimina¬ 
tions, he would have been less afraid. But Nic Deck slept 
and slept in a deep slumber. 

Midnight—that terrible hour for all, the hour of appari¬ 
tions, the hour of evil deeds ! 

What could it be ? 

The doctor had just got up again. He was asking 


78 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


himself if he were awake, or if he were suffering from a 
nightmare. 

Overhead he thought he saw—no ! he really did see— 
the strangest of shapes, lighted by a spectral light, pass 
from one horizon to the other, rise, fall, and drift down 
with the clouds. They looked like monsters, dragons with 
serpents’ tails, hippogryphs with huge wings, gigantic 
krakens, enormous vampires, fighting to seize him in their 
claws or swallow him in their jaws. 

Then everything appeared to be in motion on the 
Orgall plateau—the rocks, the trees at its edge. And 
very distinctly a clanging at short intervals reached his ear. 

“ The bell ! ” he murmured, “ the castle bell! ” 

Yes ! It was indeed the bell of the old chapel, and not 
that of the church at Vulkan, which the wind would have 
borne in the opposite direction. 

And now the strokes became more hurried. The hand 
that struck no longer tolled a funeral knell. No! It was 
an alarm, whose urgent strokes were awaking the echoes of 
the Transylvanian frontier. 

As he listened to these dismal vibrations, Doctor Patak 
was seized with a convulsive fear, an insurmountable 
anguish, an irresistible terror which thrilled his whole body 
with cold shudderings. 

But the forester had been awakened by the alarming 
clanging of the bell. He rose while Doctor Patak seemed 
as if beside himself. 

Nic Deck listened, and his eyes tried to pierce the deep 
darkness which overhung the castle. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


79 

“That bell! That bell!” repeated Doctor Patak. 
“ It is the Chort that is ringing it! ” 

Decidedly the poor terrified doctor was thinking more 
than ever of the devil. 

The forester remained motionless, and did not reply. 

Suddenly a series of roars as if from some huge animal 
at a harbour's mouth broke forth in tumultuous undulations. 

For a long distance around the air resounded with this 
deafening growl. 

Then a light darted from the centre of the donjon, an 
intense light, from which leapt flashes of penetrating clear¬ 
ness and blinding coruscations. From what could come 
this powerful light, the irradiations of which spread in long 
sheets over the Orgall plateau ? From what furnace came 
this photogenic stream, which seemed to embrace the 
rocks at the same time as it bathed them with a strange 
iividity ? 

“ Nic—Nic!” exclaimed the doctor. “Look at me! 
Am I a corpse like you ? ” 

In fact they had both assumed a corpse-like look. 
Their faces were pallid, their eyes seemed to have gone, 
the orbits being apparently empty ; their cheeks were 
greyish-green, like the mosses which the legend says 
grow on the heads of those that are hanged. 

Nic Deck was astounded at what he saw, at what he 
heard. Doctor Patak was in the last stage of fright ; his 
muscles retracted, his skin bristled, his pupils dilated, his 
body was seized with tetanic rigidity. As the poet of the 
“ Contemplations ” remarks, “ he breathed in terror.” 


So 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


A minute—a minute or more—lasted this terrifying 
phenomenon. Then the strange light gradually went out, 
the groaning ceased, and the Orgall plateau resumed its 
silence and obscurity. 

Neither of the men thought any more of sleep. The 
doctor overwhelmed with stupor, the forester upright 
against the stone seat, awaited the return of the dawn. 

What did Nic Deck think of these things, which were 
evidently so supernatural to his eyes ? Were they not 
enough to shake his resolution ? Did he still intend to 
pursue this reckless adventure ? 

Certainly he had said that he would enter the castle, 
that he would explore the donjon. But was it not enough 
for him to have come to its insurmountable wall, to have 
evoked the anger of its guardian spirits, and provoked this 
trouble of the elements ? Would he be reproached with 
not having kept to his promise if he returned to the village 
without having urged his folly to the end in entering this 
diabolic castle ? 

Suddenly the doctor threw himself upon him, seized 
him by the hand, and strove to drag him away, saying in a 
hoarse voice, “ Come ! come ! ” 

“ No ! ” said Nic Deck. 

And in turn he caught hold of Doctor Patak, who fell at 
this last effort. 

At last the night ended, and such was their mental state 
that neither forester nor doctor knew the time that elapsed 
until daybreak They remembered nothing of the hours 
which preceded the first rays of the morning. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 81 

At that moment a rosy streak appeared on the crest of 
Paring, on the eastern horizon, on the other side of the 
valley of the two Syls. The faint white rays of dawn 
dispersed over the depth of the sky, and striped it as if it 
were a zebra-skin. 

Nic Deck turned towards the castle. He saw it grow 
clearer and clearer: the donjon revealed itself from the high 
mists which came floating down the Vulkan slope ; the 
chapel, the gdlleries, the outer walls emerged from the 
nocturnal mists ; and there on the corner bastion appeared 
the beech-tree, with its leaves rustling in the easterly 
breeze. 

There was no change in the ordinary aspect of the 
castle. The bell was as motionless as the old feudal 
weather-vane. No smoke arose from the donjon chimneys, 
and the barred windows remained obstinately closed. 

Above the platform, in the higher zones of the sky, a few 
birds were flying and gently calling to each other. 

Nic Deck turned to look at the principal entrance to the 
castle. The drawbridge up against the bay closed the 
postern between the two stone pillars which bore the arms 
of the barons of Gortz. 

Had the forester resolved to continue this adventurous 
expedition to the end ? Yes ; and his resolution had not 
been shaken by the events of the night. A thing said was 
a thing done—that was his motto as we know. Neither 
the mysterious voice which had threatened him personally 
in the saloon of the “ King Mathias,” nor the inexplicable 
phenomenon of sound and light he had just witnessed, 


82 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


would stop him from entering the castle. An hour would 
be enough for him to hurry through the galleries, visit the 
keep, and then, having fulfilled his promise, he would return 
t'o Werst, where he would arrive during the morning. 

As to Doctor Patak, he was now only an inert machine, 
without either the strength to resist or to insist. He would 
go where he was driven. If he fell, it would be impossible 
to lift him again. The terrors of the night had reduced 
him to complete imbecility, and he made no observation 
when the forester pointed to the castle and said,— 

“ Come on ! ” 

And yet the day had returned, and the doctor could 
have got back to Werst without fear of losing himself in 
the Plesa forests. He had no reason to wish to remain 
with Nic Deck, and if he did not abandon his companion 
to return to the village, it was that he was no longer con¬ 
scious of the state of affairs, and was merely a body with¬ 
out a mind. And so when the forester dragged him 
towards the slope of the counterscarp he made no 
resistance. 

But was it possible to enter the castle otherwise than by 
the gate? That was what Nic Deck endeavoured to 
discover. 

The wall showed no breach, no falling in, no excavation, 
giving access to the interior. It was indeed surprising 
that these old walls were in such a state of preservation, 
but this was doubtless due to their thickness. To climb 
to the line of crenellations which crowned them appeared 
to be impracticable, as they rose some forty feet above the 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 83 

ditch. And it seemed as though Nic Deck, at the very 
moment of reaching the Castle of the Carpathians, was to 
fail owing to insurmountable obstacles. 

Fortunately—or very unfortunately for him—there 
stood above the postern a sort of loophole, or rather an 
embrasure, through which formerly pointed the muzzle of 
a culverin. By making use of one of the chains of the 
drawbridge which hung down to the ground, it would not 
be very difficult for an active, vigorous man to hoist him¬ 
self up to this embrasure. Its width was sufficient to allow 
of a man to pass, unless it was barred on the inside, and 
Nic Deck could probably manage to get through it within 
the castle wall. 

The forester saw at once that this was the only way 
open to him, and that is why, followed by the unconscious 
doctor, he went obliquely down the inner slope of the 
counterscarp. 

They were soon at the bottom of the ditch, which was 
strewn with stones amid the thickets of wild plants. They 
could hardly find a place to step, and they were not sure 
that myriads of venomous beasts did not swarm in the 
herbage of this humid excavation. 

In the middle of the ditch, and parallel to the wall, was 
the ancient trench, now nearly dry, which they could just 
stride across. 

Nic Deck, having lost nothing of his mental or bodily 
energy, went on coolly and quietly, while the doctor 
followed him mechanically, like an animal at the end of a 
string. 


G 2 


8 4 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


After crossing the trench, the forester went along the 
base of the curtain for some twenty yards, and stopped 
underneath the gate close to one end of the chain of the 
drawbridge. By the help of his hands and feet he could 
thence easily reach the line of stonework that jutted out 
just below the embrasure. 

Evidently Nic did not intend to compel the doctor to 
take part with him in this escalade. So heavy a man 
could not have done so. He therefore contented himself 
with giving him a vigorous shake to make him understand, 
and then advised him to wait without moving at the 
bottom of the ditch. 

Then Nic Deck commenced to climb the chain; and 
this was merely child’s play for his mountaineer’s muscles. 

But when the doctor found himself alone, the true posi¬ 
tion of things, to a certain extent, recurred to him. He 
understood, he looked, he saw his companion already 
suspended a dozen feet from the ground, and in a voice 
choking with the bitterness of fear, he cried,— 

“ Stop—Nic—stop ! ” 

The forester heard him not. 

“ Come—come—or I will go away ! ” cried the doctor. 

“Go, then,” said Nic. 

And he continued to raise himself along the chain of 
the drawbridge. 

Doctor Patak, in a paroxysm of terror, would have 
gone back again up the slope of the counterscarp, so as to 
reach the crest of the Orgall plateau and return full speed 
to Werst. 



This was merely child's play. 


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The marriageable girls of the district. 





















The Castle of the Carpathians. 


85 


But—prodigy to which the wonders of the preceding 
night were as nothing—he could not move. His feet 
were held fast as if they had been seized in the jaws of a 
vice. Could he place one before the other ? No. They 
stuck by the heels and soles of his boots. Had the doctor 
been taken in a trap ? He was too much frightened to 
look, but it seemed as though he was held by the nails in 
his boots. 

Whatever it was, the poor man was immovable. He 
was fixed to the ground. Not having strength to cry out, 
he stretched out his hands in despair. It looked as though 
he sought to be rescued from the embrace of some tarask 
hidden in the bowels of the earth. 

Meanwhile Nic Deck had got as high as the postern, and 
was placing his hand on the ironwork in which the 
hinges of’the drawbridge were embedded. 

A cry of pain escaped him ; then throwing himself back, 
as if he had been struck by lightning, he slipped along the 
chain, which a final instinct made him clutch, and rolled 
to the bottom of the ditch. 

“ The voice truly said that mi .fortune would come to 
me,” he murmured, and then he lost consciousness. 


CHAPTER VII. 


How can we describe the anxiety to which the village of 
Werst had been a prey since the departure of the young 
forester and Doctor Patak ? And it had constantly 
increased as the hours elapsed, and seemed interminable. 

Master Koltz, the innkeeper Jonas, Magister Hermod, 
and a few others had remained all the time on the terrace, 
each of them keeping a constant watch on the distant 
castle to see if any wreath of smoke appeared over the 
donjon. No smoke showed itself—as was ascertained by 
means of the telescope, which was incessantly brought to 
bear in that direction: Assuredly the two florins sunk in 
the acquisition of that instrument had been well invested. 
Never had the biro, although so much interested in the 
matter, betrayed the slightest regret at so opportune an 
expenditure. 

At half-past twelve, when the shepherd Frik returned 
from the pasture, he was eagerly interrogated. Was there 
anything new, anything extraordinary, anything super¬ 
natural ? 

Frik replied that he had just come along the valley of 
the Wallachian Syl without seeing anything suspicious. 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


87 


After dinner, about two o’clock, the people went back 
to their post of observation. No one dreamt of remain¬ 
ing at home, and no one would certainly have dreamt of 
setting foot within the grand saloon of the “ King Mathias,” 
where comminatory voices made themselves heard. That 
walls have ears is all very well, it is a popular proverb— 
but a mouth! 

And so the worthy innkeeper might well fear that his 
inn had been put into quarantine, and consequently his 
anxiety was extreme. Would he have to shut up shop, 
and drink his own stock for want of customers ? And 
with a view of restoring confidence among the people of 
Werst, he had undertaken a lengthy search throughout the 
“ King Mathias he had searched the rooms, under the 
beds, explored the cupboards and the sideboard, and every 
corner of the large saloon, the cellar, and the store-room, 
from which any ill-disposed practical joker might have 
worked the mystification. 

Nothing could he find, not even along the side of the 
house overlooking the Nyad. The windows were too 
high for it to be possible for any one to climb to them 
along a perpendicular wall, the foundation of which went 
sheer down into the impetuous torrent. It mattered not ! 
Fear does not reason, and considerable time would doubt¬ 
less elapse befdre Jonas’s habitual guests would return to 
their confidence in his inn, his schnapps, and his rakiou. 

Considerable time ? That is a mistake, and, as we shall 
see, this gloomy prognostic was never realized. 

In fact, a few days later, in a quite unexpected way, the 


88 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

village notables were to resume their daily conferences, 
varied with refreshments, in the saloon of the “ King 
Mathias.” 

But we must first return to the young forester and his 
companion, Doctor Patak. 

It will be remembered that when he left Werst, Nic Deck 
had promised the disconsolate Miriota that he would make 
his visit to the Castle of the Carpathians as brief as 
possible. If no harm happened to him, if the threats 
fulminated against him were not realized, he expected to 
get back early in the evening. He was therefore waited 
for, and with what impatience ! Neither the girl, nor her 
father, nor the schoolmaster could foresee that the diffi¬ 
culties of the road would prevent the forester from reaching 
the crest of the Orgall plateau before nightfall. 

And, in consequence, the anxiety, which had been 
intense during the day, exceeded all bounds when eight 
o’clock struck in the Vulkan clock, which could be heard 
distinctly at Werst, What could have happened to pre¬ 
vent both Nic and the doctor from returning after a day’s 
absence ? Nobody thought of going home before they 
came back. Every minute they were seen in imagination 
coming round some turning in the road or along some gap 
in the hills. 

Master Koltz and his daughter had gone to the end of 
the road, where the shepherd had been placed on the look¬ 
out. Many times they thought they saw somebody in the 
distance through the clearings among the trees. A pure 
illusion! The hillside was deserted, as usual, for it was 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


89 


not often that the frontier folk ventured there at night. 
And it was Thursday evening—the Thursday of evil 
spirits—and on that day the Transylvanian never willingly 
stirs abroad after sundown. It seemed that Nic Deck must 
have been mad to have chosen such a day for his visit to 
the castle ; the truth being that the young forester had not 
given it a thought, as indeed had no one else in the village. 

But Miriota was thinking a good deal about it now. 
And what terrible imaginings occurred to her ! In imagina¬ 
tion she had followed her lover hour by hour, through the 
thick forests of the Plesa as he made his way up to the 
Orgall plateau. And now that night had come she seemed 
to see him within the wall, endeavouring to escape from 
the spirits which haunted the Castle of the Carpathians. 
He had become the sport of their malevolence. He was 
the victim devoted to their vengeance. He was imprisoned 
in the depths of some subterranean gaol—dead, perhaps. 

Poor girl, what would she not have given to throw her¬ 
self on his track ! And as she could not do that, at least 
she could wait all night in this place. But her father 
insisted on her going home, and, leaving the shepherd on 
the watch, returned with her to his house. 

As soon as she was in her little room Miriota abandoned 
herself to tears. She loved him with all her heart, this 
brave Nic, and with a love all the more grateful owing to 
the young forester not having sought her under the condi¬ 
tions on which marriages are generally arranged in these 
TransyIvaniati countries. 

Every year, at the feast of St. Peter, there opens “ the 


90 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


fair of the betrothed.” On that day all the marriageable 
girls of the district are assembled. They come in their 
best carriages drawn by their best horses ; they bring with 
them their dowry, that is to say, the clothes they have 
spun, and sewn, and embroidered with their hands, and 
these are all packed in gaudily coloured boxes; their rela¬ 
tives and women friends and neighbours accompanying 
them. And then the young men arrive dressed in their 
best clothes and girt with silken sashes ; proudly they 
strut through the fair; they choose the girl they take a 
fancy to ; they give her a ring and a handkerchief in token 
of betrothal, and the marriages take place at the close of 
the fair. 

But it was not in one of these marriage fairs that Nic 
Deck had met Miriota Their acquaintanceship had not 
come about by chance. They had known each other from 
childhood; they had loved as soon as they were old 
enough to love. The young forester had not had to seek 
her out at a sale. But why was Nic Deck of so resolute a 
character ? why was he so obstinate in keeping an impru¬ 
dent promise ? And yet he loved her, although she had 
not enough influence over him to stop his going to this 
wretched castle. 

What a night the sorrowful Miriota had amid her terrors 
and her tears! She could not sleep. Stooping at her 
window, looking out on the rising road, she seemed to hear 
a voice that whispered,— 

“Nicolas Deck has defied the warning. Miriota has no 
longer a lover.” 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


9i 


But that was but a mistake of her troubled senses. No 
voice came across the silence of the night. The pheno¬ 
menon of the saloon of the “King Mathias” was not re¬ 
produced in the house of Master Koltz. 

At dawn next morning the population of Werst were 
astir. From the terrace to the rise of the hill, some went 
one way, some another, along the main road—some asking 
for news, some giving it. They said that Frik the shepherd 
had gone off about a quarter of a mile from the village, not 
to enter the forest, but to skirt it, and that he had some 
reason for doing so. 

The people were waiting for him, and in order to com¬ 
municate more promptly with him, Master Koltz, Miriota, 
and Jonas went to the end of the village. 

Half an hour afterwards Frik was observed a few hundred 
yards away up the rising road. 

As he did not appear to be in a hurry, good news was 
not expected. 

“ Well, Frik,” said Master Koltz as soon as the shepherd 
came up, “what have you discovered ? ” 

“ I have seen nothing and discovered nothing,” said Frik. 

“Nothing!” murmured the girl, whose eyes filled with 
tears. 

“ At daybreak,” continued the shepherd, “ I saw two men 
about half a mile away. At first I thought it was Nic Deck 
accompanied by the doctor, but it was not.” 

“ Do you know who the men were ?” asked Jonas. 

“ Two travellers who had crossed the frontier in the 
morning.” 


92 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


“ You spoke to them ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Were they coming towards the village ? ” 

“ No ; they were going towards Retyezat, bound for the 
summit.” 

“Two tourists ?” 

“ They looked like it, Master Koltz.” 
iC And as they crossed the Vulkan during the night, they 
saw nothing near the castle?” 

“ No—for they were then on the other side of the 
frontier,” replied Frik. 

“ Have you no news of Nic Deck ? ” 

“ None.” 

There was a sigh from poor Miriota. 

“ Besides,” said Frik, “ you can have a talk to these 
travellers in a day or two, for they are thinking of staying 
at Werst before setting out for Kolosvar.” 

“ Provided some one does not speak evil of my inn ! ” 
thought Jonas. “They would never care to stay there ! ” 
For the last thirty-six hours the excellent landlord had 
been possessed by this fear that no traveller dare hence¬ 
forth eat and sleep at the “ King Mathias.” 

In short, these questions and answers between the 
shepherd and his master had in no way cleared matters up. 
And as neither the young forester nor Doctor Patak had 
reappeared by eight o'clock in the morning, could it be 
reasonably hoped that they would ever reappear ? The 
Castle of the Carpathians was not to be approached with 
impunity. 



Stretched on a litter of 


boughs. 


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A few gipsy families moved off. 


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The Castle of the Carpathians. 93 

Crushed by the emotions of that sleepless night, Mirio'a 
could bear up no longer. She almost fainted away, and 
hardly had strength to walk. Her father took her home. 
There her tears redoubled. She called Nic in a heartrend¬ 
ing voice. She would have gone out to find him. And 
all pitied her and feared she was going to have a serious 
illness. 

However, it was necessary and urgent to do something. 
Some one ought to go to the help of the forester and the 
doctor without losing a moment. That he would have to 
run into danger, id exposing himself to the attack of the 
beings, human 01 otherwise, who occupied the castle, 
mattered little. The important thing was to know what 
had become of Nic and the doctor. This duty fell not only 
to their friends, but to every inhabitant of the village. The 
bravest could not refuse to cross the Plesa forests and 
ascend to the Castle of the Carpathians. 

That was decided after many discussions. The bravest 
were found to consist of three : these were Master Koltz, 
the shepherd Frik, and the innkeeper Jonas—not one 
more As for Magister Hermod he was suddenly seized 
with gout in the leg, and had to stretch himself out on two 
chairs while he taught in his school. 

About nine o’clock Master Koltz and his companions, 
well armed in case of eventualities, took the road to the 
Vulkan. And at the very turning where Nic Deck had left 
it, they left it to plunge into the woods. 

In fact they said to themselves, not without reason, that 
if the young forester and the doctor were on their way 


94 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

back to the village, this was the road by which they would 
come ; and it would be easy to get on their track once the 
three were through the outer line of trees. 

We will leave them, to relate what happened at Wcrst 
as soon as they were out of sight. If it had appeared 
indispensable that volunteers should go off to the rescue of 
Nic Deck and Patak, it was considered to be unreasonably 
imprudent now that they were gone. It would be a fine 
conclusion if the first catastrophe were to be doubled by a 
second ! That the forester and the doctor had been the 
victims of their attempt, no one doubted ; and what was the 
use of Master Koltz and Frik and Jonas exposing them¬ 
selves to another disaster ? They would indeed be getting 
on when the girl had to weep for her father as she had to 
weep for her betrothed ; when the friends of the shepherd 
and the innkeeper had to reproach themselves with their loss! 

The grief became general at Werst, and there was no 
sign that it would soon end. Even supposing that ho 
harm happened to them, the return of Master Koltz and his 
two companions could not be reckoned upon before night 
had fallen on the heights of the Plesa. 

What, then, was the surprise when they were sighted 
about two o’clock in the afternoon some distance along 
the road ! With what eagerness did Miriota, who was at 
once told of their approach, run to meet them ! 

There were not three, there were four ; and the fourth 
appeared in the shape of the doctor. 

“ Nic—my poor Nic !exclaimed the girl, “ Nic is not 
there ? ” 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 95 

Yes—Nic Deck was there, stretched on a litter of boughs, 
which Jonas and the shepherd bore with difficulty. 

Miriota rushed towards her betrothed, she stooped over 
him, she clasped him in her arms. 

“ He is dead ! ” she exclaimed, “ he is dead ! ” 

“No, he is not dead,” replied Doctor Patak, “ but he 
deserves to be—and so do I ! ” 

The truth is, the forester was unconscious. His limbs 
were stifC his face bloodless, his respiration hardly moved 
his chest. As for the doctor, his face was not as colour¬ 
less as his companion's, owing to the walk having restored 
his usual brick-red tint. 

Miriota’s voice, so tender, so heartrending, could not 
awake Nic Deck from the torpor in which he was plunged. 
When he had been brought into the village and laid in a 
room in Master Koltz’s house, he had not uttered a word. 
A few moments afterwards, however, his eyes opened, and 
when he saw the girl stooping over him, a smile played on 
his lips ; but when he tried to raise himself he could not. 
A part of his body was paralyzed as if he had been struck 
with hemiplegia. At the same time, wishing to comfort 
Miriota, he said to her—in a very feeble voice, it is 
true,— 

“ It will be nothing, it will be nothing.” 

“ Nic—my poor Nic ! ” said the girl. 

“ A little over-fatigue, dear Miriota, and a little excite¬ 
ment. It will be over soon, with your nursing.” 

But the patient required calm and repose ; and so 
Master Koltz went away, leaving Miriota near the young 


96 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


forester, who could not have wished for a more attentive 
nurse, and soon fell asleep. 

Meanwhile, the innkeeper Jonas related to a numerous 
audience, and in a loud voice so as to be heard by all, 
what had happened after their departure. 

Master Koltz, the shepherd, and himself, after finding 
the footpath cut by Nic Deck and the doctor, had gone 
on towards the Castl.e of the Carpathians. For two hours 
they made their way up the Plesa slopes, and the edge of 
the forest was not more than half a mile off, when two 
men appeared. These were the doctor and the forester, 
one quite helpless in his legs, the other just about to fall 
at the foot of a tree, owing to exhaustion. 

To run to the doctor, to interrogate him, but without 
being able to obtain a single word, for he was too stupefied 
to reply; to make a litter with the branches, to lay Nic 
Deck on it, to put Patak on his feet,—did not take very 
long. Then Master Koltz and the shepherd, who relieved 
Jonas from time to time, resumed the road to Werst. 

As to saying why Nic Deck was in such a state, and if 
he had entered the ruins of the castle, the innkeeper knew 
no more than Master Koltz or the shepherd Frik, and 
the doctor had not yet sufficiently recovered his spirits to 
satisfy their curiosity. 

But if Patak had not yet spoken, it was necessary for 
him to speak now. He was in safety in the village, sur¬ 
rounded by his friends, and in the midst of his patients. 
He had nothing to fear from the things at the castle. 
And even if they had wrung from him an oath to be 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 97 

silent, to say nothing of what he had seen at the Castle of 
the Carpathians, the public interest required that he should 
ignore that oath. 

“Compose yourself, doctor,” said Master Koltz, “and 
try and remember.” 

“ You wish me to speak ?” 

“ In the name of the inhabitants of Werst, and for the 
sake of the safety of the village, I order you to do so.” 

A large glass of rakiou, brought in by Jonas, had the 
effect of restoring to the doctor the use of his tongue, and 
in broken sentences he expressed himself in these terms :— 

“We went off, both of us, Nic and I. Fools, fools ! It 
took nearly all day to get through those wretched forests. 
We did not get up to the castle before it was getting dark. 
I still tremble at it—I will tremble at it all my life. Nic 
wanted to go in. Yes ! He wanted to spend the night 
in the donjon, as much as to say to sleep in the bedroom 
of Beelzebub.” 

Doctor Patak said these things in a voice so cavernous 
that all who heard him shuddered. 

“ I did not consent! ” he continued ; “ no, I did not 
consent. And what would have happened if I had yielded 
to Nic Deck’s desires ? My hair stands on end to think 
of it.” 

And if the doctor’s hair did not stand on end, it was 
because his hand wandered mechanically over his poll. 

“ Nic accordingly resigned himself to camping on the 
Orga 11 plateau. What a night! my friends, what a night! 
Try to rest when the spirits will not let you sleep an hour 

H 


9 8 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


—no, not even one hour. Suddenly fiery monsters appeared 
in the clouds, regular balauris ! They hurled themselves 
on to the plateau to devour us.” 

Every look was turned towards the sky, to make sure 
that a few spectres were not there in full gallop. 

And a few moments after,” continued the doctor, “ the 
chapel bell began to clang ! ” 

Every ear was stretched towards the horizon, and more 
than one of the crowd believed they could hear the distant 
ringing in the direction of the castle, so much had the 
doctor’s recital impressed his audience. 

“ Suddenly,” he went on, “fearful bellowings filled the 
air, or rather the roaring of wild beasts. Then a bright 
light darted from the windows of the donjon. An infernal 
flame illumined all the plateau up to the fir forest. Nic 
Deck and I looked at one another. Ah ! the terrible 
vision ! We were like two corpses—two corpses which the 
lurid light set making horrible grimaces at each other.” 

And to look at Doctor Patak, with his convulsed face 
and his wild eyes, there really would have been some 
excuse for asking if he had not returned from that other 
world whither he had already sent so many of his kind. 

He had to be left to recover his breath, for he was in¬ 
capable of continuing his story. This cost Jonas a second 
glass of rakiou, which appeared to bring back to the doctor 
some portion of the senses which the other spirits had 
made him lose. 

“ But what happened to poor Nic Deck ?” asked Master 
Koltz. 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


99 


And, not without reason, the biro attached extreme 
importance to the doctor’s reply, for it was the 
young forester who had been personally threatened by 
the voice of the spirits in the saloon of the “ King 
Mathias.” 

“As far as I remember,” continued the doctor, “the 
daylight returned. I besought Nic Deck to abandon his 
projects. But you know him—he could not be more 
obstinate if he would. He went down into the ditch, and I 
was forced to follow him, for he dragged me along with him. 
Besides, I really do not know what I did. Nic went on 
up to the gate. He caught hold of the chain of the draw¬ 
bridge, with which he pulled himself up the wall. At this 
moment the sense of our position occurred. There was 
still time to stop him, that rash—I say more—that sacri¬ 
legious young ,man. For the last time I ordered him to 
come down, to come hack on the road to Werst. ‘ No ! } 
he shouted to me. I would have run away—yes, my 
friends, I confess it—I would have fled, and there is not 
one of you who would not have had the same thought in 
my place ! But it was in vain I tried to move from the 
ground. My feet were nailed, screwed, rooted. I tried to 
free them—it was impossible. I tried to struggle—it was 
useless ! ” 

And Doctor Patak imitated the desperate movements of 
a man held by the legs, as a fox is held in a trap. Then, 
resuming his story, he said,— 

“ At this moment there was a cry—and such a cry! It 
was Nic Deck who uttered it. His hands had let go the 


II 2 


100 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


chain, and he fell to the bottom of the ditch as if he had 
been struck by an invisible hand.” 

The doctor, it is clear, had told what had happened, and 
his imagination had added nothing, excited though it 
might be. Just as he had described them, so had the 
prodigies appeared of which the Orgall plateau had been 
the scene during the preceding night. 

What had happened after Nic Deck’s fall was as follows— 
The forester had fainted, and Doctor Patak was incapable 
of helping him, for his boots were stuck to the ground, and 
he could not get his swollen feet out of them. Suddenly 
the invisible force that detained him vanished. His legs 
were free. He rushed towards his companion, and, what 
must be considered a noble act of courage, he bathed Nic 
Deck’s face with his handkerchief, which he dipped in the 
water of the stream. The forester recovered consciousness, 
but his left arm and a part of his body were helpless after 
the frightful shock he had had. However, with the 
doctor’s aid he managed to get up and climb the slope of 
the counterscarp and regain the plateau. Then he set 
out for the village. After an hour’s progress the pain in 
his arm and side became so violent that he had to stop. 
And it was just as the doctor was about to start off alone 
in search of help from Werst, that Master Koltz and Jonas 
and Frik arrived most opportunely. 

The doctor carefully avoided saying that the young 
forester had been seriously hurt, although he was generally 
very positive when consulted on medical matters. 

“ When the ailment is a natural ailment,” he said in a 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


ioi 


dogmatic tone, “it is serious. But when we have to deal 
with a supernatural ailment sent by the Chort, it is only 
the Chort who can cure it.” 

In default of a diagnosis it cannot be said that this 
prognosis was reassuring for Nic Deck. There have, how¬ 
ever, been many physicians since Hippocrates and Galen 
who have made mistakes, and these have been far better 
men than Doctor Patak. The young forester was a 
healthy lad ; with his vigorous constitution there was 
reason to hope that without any diabolic intervention he 
would recover, on condition that he was not too careful to 
accept the advice of the old quarantine officer. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


SUCH things were not calculated to calm the terrors of the 
people of Werst. There could now be no doubt that the 
threats uttered by the “ mouth of darkness/’ as the poet 
said in the “ King Mathias,” were to be taken seriously. 
Nic Deck, struck in this inexplicable manner, had been 
punished for his disobedience and temerity. Was not this 
a warning to all those who might be tempted to follow his 
example? Here, clearly enough, was a formal prohibition 
against entering the Castle of the Carpathians. Whoever 
tried it would risk his life. Most certainly if the forester 
had got within the wali he would never have returned to 
the village. 

And so the fright was more complete than ever at 
Werst, and even at Vulkan, and also throughout the 
valley of the two Syls. Nothing less was spoken of than 
leaving the district, and a few gipsy families moved off 
rather than live in the vicinity of the castle. That it 
should be a refuge for supernatural and maleficent beings 
was more than the popular feeling could put up with. 
The only thing to do was to go into some other part of 
the country, unless the Hungarian Government decided to 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


103 


destroy this inaccessible haunt. But was the Castle of the 
Carpathians destructible by the only means man had at 
his disposal ? 

During the first week of June no one would venture out 
of the village, not even to work in the fields. Might not 
the least stroke of a spade provoke the apparition of some 
phantom buried in the ground ? The coulter of the plough 
as it cut the furrow, might it not set in flight a flock of 
stafifii orstryges ? Where the seed of corn was sown, might 
not the seed of demons spring up ? 

“ That could not fail to happen ! ” said the shepherd 
Frik in a tone of conviction. 

And, as far as he was concerned, he took good care not 
to return with his sheep to the pastures of the Syl. 

And so the village was in a state of terror. No one 
went to work in the fields. Every one remained at home 
with doors and windows closed. Master Koltz did not 
know what to do to restore confidence among those under 
his rule. Evidently the only way was to go to Kolosvar 
and invoke the intervention of the authorities. 

And had the smoke reappeared at the top of the donjon 
chimney? Yes; many times the telescope had made it 
visible among the mists which swept the Orgall plateau. 

And when night came, had the clouds assumed a rosy 
hue as if from the reflection of a fire ? Yes; and it was 
said that fiery plumes could be seen curling and whirling 
over the castle. 

And that roaring which had frightened Doctor Patak, 
was it heard from among the woods of Plesa, to the terror 


104 The Cast-le of the Carpathians. 

of the people of Werst? Yes ; or at least, notwithstanding 
the distance, the north-west wind brought along fearful 
growlings which were augmented by the echoes of the 
hills. 

According to some of the more terror-stricken, the 
ground was shaken by subterranean tremblings as if some 
ancient volcano had become active again in the Carpathian 
chain But possibly there was a good deal of exaggera¬ 
tion in what the Werstians thought they saw and heard 
an.d felt. Under any circumstances there were positive, 
tangible reasons, it will be admitted, why living in such a 
strangely troubled country was no longer possible. 

The “ King Mathias ” remained deserted in consequence. 
A lazaretto in an epidemic could not have been more 
shunned. No one had the audacity to cross the threshold, 
and Jonas was asking himself if for want of customers he 
would not have to retire from trade, when the arrival of 
two travellers altered matters considerably. 

In the evening of the month of June, about eight 
o’clock, the latch of the door was lifted from the outside ; 
but the door, being bolted inside, could not be opened. 

Jonas, who had already retired to his attic, hastily came 
down. To the hope of finding himself face to face with a 
customer was added the fear that the customer might be 
some evil-looking ghost, to whom he would be only too 
ready to refuse board and lodging. 

Jonas proceeded to hold a parley through the door 
without opening it. 

“ Who is there ? ” he asked. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 105 

“ Two travellers.” 

“ Alive ? ” 

“ Very much alive.” 

“ Are you sure of it ? ” 

“As much alive as we can be, Mr. Innkeeper; but we 
shall die of hunger if you keep us outside.” 

Jonas decided to draw back the bolts, and two men 
entered the room. 

As soon as they were in, their first demand was 
for a room each, as they intended to stay a day at 
Werst. 

By the light of the lamp Jonas examined the new¬ 
comers with great attention, and made sure that he had 
really to deal with human beings. How fortunate for 
the “ King Mathias ” ! 

The younger of the travellers might be about thirty-two 
years old, of tall stature, with a noble, handsome face, 
black eyes, dark-brown hair, a well-cut brown beard, a 
somewhat sad but proud look about him—in fact he was a 
gentleman, and an experienced innkeeper like Jonas could 
not be mistaken in such a matter. 

Besides, when he asked what names he was to enter in 
his visitors’ book, the younger man replied,— 

“ The Count Franz de Telek and his man Rotzko.” 

“ Of what place ? ” 

“ Krajowa.” 

Krajowa is one of the chief towns of the State of 
Roumania,which borders the Transylvanian provinces south 
of the Carpathian chain. 


io6 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Franz de Telek was thus of Roumanian nationality, as 
Jonas had seen from the very first. 

Rotzko was a man of about forty, solidly built and 
strong, with a thick moustache, bristly ha r, and quite a 
military bearing. He carried a soldier’s knapsack strapped 
to his shoulders, and a valise small enough to be carried in 
his hand. 

That was all the baggage of the young count, who 
travelled generally on foot, as could be seen from his 
costume—a cloak in a roll over his shoulder, a light cap on 
his head, a short jacket with a belt, from which hung the 
leather sheath of the Wallachian knife, and he wore the 
gaiters strapped down to the broad, thick-soled shoes. 

These travellers were the two whom the shepherd 
Frik had met twelve days before on the road to the hills, 
when they were going to Retyezat. After seeing the 
country up to Maros, and making the ascent of the 
mountain, they had come for a little rest to Werst before 
exploring the valley of the two Syls. 

“You have two rooms we can have ?” asked Franz de 
Telek 

“Two—three—four—as many as the count pleases,” 
said Jonas. 

“ Two will do,” said Rotzko, “ but they must be near 
each other.” 

“ Will these suit you ? ” asked Jonas, opening two doors 
at the end of the large saloon. 

“ Very well indeed,” said Franz de Telek. 

Evidently Jonas had nothing to fear from his new 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


107 

customers. These were no supernatural beings, no 
phantoms who had assumed the shape of men. No! 
This gentleman was one of those personages of distinction 
whom an innkeeper is always honoured in welcoming, 
and who might perhaps bring the “ King Mathias ” into 
fashion again. 

“ How far are we from Kolosvar?” asked the count. 

“ About fifty miles, if you go by the road through 
Petroseny and Karlsburg,” replied Jonas. 

“ Is it a tiring sort of walk ? ” 

“ Yes, very tiring for walkers ; and if I may be permitted 
to say so, the count would seem to require a rest of a few 
days before undertaking it—” 

“ Can we have anything to eat ?” asked Franz de Telek, 
cutting short the innkeeper’s remarks. 

“In half an hour’s time I shall have the honour of offer¬ 
ing the count a repast worthy of him,” 

“ Bread, wine, eggs, and cold meat will be enough for 
to-night.” 

“ I will go and see about them.” 

“ As soon as possible."” 

“This moment.” 

And Jonas was hurrying off to the kitchen when a 
question stopped him,— 

“You do not seem to have many people at your inn ? ” 
said Franz de Telek. 

“ No—not just at the moment, sir.” 

“Is not this the time for people to come and have a 
drink and smoke a pipe ?” 


108 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

“ It is too late now, sir. They go to bed with the 
chickens in the village of Werst.” 

Never would he have said why the “ King Mathias ” was 
without a customer. 

“ Are there not three or four hundred people in this 
village ? ” 

“ About that, sir.’' 

“ Why did we not meet a living soul as we came down 
the main street ? ” 

“That is because —to-day-well, it is Saturday, you see 
—and the day before Sunday is— 

Franz de Telek did not persist, luckily for Jonas, who 
did not know what to reply. Nothing in the world would 
have induced him to reveal the true state of affairs. 
Strangers would learn that only too soon, and who could 
tell if they would not hasten to leave a village so deservedly 
suspected ? 

“ It is to be hoped that that voice will not begin to 
chatter in the big room while they are at supper !” thought 
Jonas as he laid the table. 

A few minutes afterwards the very simple meal ordered 
by the young count was neatly served on a clean white 
cloth. Franz de Telek sat down, and Rotzko seated him¬ 
self facing him, as they usually did on their travels. Both 
of them ate with a good appetite ; and when the repast 
was over they retired to their rooms. 

As the young count and Rotzko had hardly spoken ten 
words during their meal, Jonas had not been able to take 
part in their conversation—to his great displeasure. Be- 



He had really to deal with human beings. 


Page 105 








































































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“ I said, ‘ Oh, ah ! ’ ” 


Page 113 










































The Castle of the Carpathians. 109 

sides, Franz de Telek did not seem to be communicative. 
As to Rotzko, the innkeeper, after due sufvey, gathered 
that he would not be able to get anything out of him 
regarding his master’s family. 

Jonas had, therefore, to content himself with bidding his 
visitors good-night. Before he went up to his attic he 
gave a good look around the room, and lent an anxious 
ear to the least noises within and without, saying to 
himself,— 

“ May that abominable voice not awake them from 
their sleep ! ” 

The night passed tranquilly. 

At daybreak next morning the news began to spread in 
the village that two travellers had arrived at the “ King 
Mathias,” and a number of people gathered in front of 
the inn. 

Franz de Telek and Rotzko were still sleeping, tired 
after their excursion the day before. There was little 
likelihood of their rising before seven or eight o’clock. 
And consequently there was great impatience among the 
spectators, who had none of them the courage to enter the 
room before the travellers. 

At eight o’clock they came in together. Nothing re¬ 
grettable had happened. They could be seen walking 
about in the inn. Then they sat down to breakfast. All 
of which was particularly reassuring. 

Jonas stood at the front door and smiled amiably, 
inviting his old customers to give him another trial. The 
traveller who honoured the “King Mathias” with his pre- 


no The Castle of the Carpathians. 

sence was a gentleman—a Roumanian gentleman, if you 
please, and of one of the oldest Roumanian families— 
what was to be feared in such noble company ? 

In short, it happened that Master Koltz, thinking it his 
duty to set an example, took the risk of the first step. 

About nine o’clock the biro entered the room in rather 
a hesitating way. Almost immediately he was followed 
by Magister Hermod and three or four other customers, 
as well as the shepherd Frik. As to Doctor Patak, it had 
been impossible to persuade him to accompany them. 

“Set foot again in Jonas’s ! ” he said. “ Never, until he 
pays me two florins a visit ” 

We may here remark, as it is a matter of some impor¬ 
tance, that if Master Koltz had consented to return to the 
“ King Mathias,” it was not solely with a view of satisfying 
his curiosity, nor with the intention of making the 
acquaintance of Count Franz de Telek. No ! self-interest 
was his chief motive. 

As a traveller the young count had become liable for a 
tax on self and man, and it must not be forgotten that 
these taxes went direct into the pocket of the chief magis¬ 
trate of Werst. 

The biro at once went forward and politely stated his 
demand, and Franz de Telek, although taken somewhat by 
surprise, immediately settled the claim. 

He even begged the biro and the schoolmaster to be 
seated for a moment at his table, and the offer was so 
politely made that they could not refuse. 

Jonas hastened to serve them with drinks, the best he 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


hi 


had in his cellar, and then a few of the natives of 
Werst asked for a drink on their own account, and it 
seemed as though the old customers, for a moment 
dispersed, would soon be as plentiful as ever in the “ King 
Mathias.” 

Having paid the traveller’s tax, Franz de Telek wished 
to know if it were productive. 

“ Not as much as we wish,” replied Master Koltz. 

“ Do strangers only come here occasionally, then ?” 

“ Very occasionally,” said the biro, “ and yet the country 
is worth a visit.” 

“ So I think,” said the count. “ What I have seen 
appeared to me to be well worth a traveller’s attention. 
From the top of the Retyezat I much admired the valley 
of the Syls, the villages away to the east, and the range of 
mountains which closes in the view.” 

“ It is very fine, sir, very fine ! ” said Magister Hcrmod ; 
“ and to complete your tour you should make the ascent 
of Paring.” 

“ I am afraid I shall not have the necessary time,” said 
the count. 

“ One day would be enough.” 

“ Probably ; but I am going to Karlsburg, and I must 
start to-morrow morning.” 

“ What! ” said Jonas with his most amiable air. “ Does 
the count think of leaving us so soon ? ” 

And he would not have been sorry if the visitors could 
have stayed some time at the “ King Mathias.” 

“ It must be so,” said the Count de Telek. “ Besides, 


112 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


what would be the use of my making a longer stay at 
Werst ? ” 

“ Believe me, our village is well worth a tourist's making 
some stay at,” said Master Koltz. 

“ But it does not seem to be much frequented,” said the 
count, “and that is probably because its neighbourhood 
has nothing remarkable about it.” 

“ Quite so—nothing remarkable,” said the biro, thinking 
of the castle. 

“ No—nothing remarkable,” said the schoolmaster. 

“ Oh ! ah ! ” said the shepherd Frik, the exclamation 
escaping involuntarily. 

What looks he received from Master Koltz and the 
others, particularly from the innkeeper ! 

Was it then advisable to let the stranger into the secrets 
of the district ? Should they reveal to him what had 
passed on the plateau of Orgall, and direct his attention 
to the Castle of the Carpathians ? Would that not frighten 
him and make him anxious to leave the village ? And in 
the future what travellers would come by the Vulkan road 
into Transylvania? 

Truly the shepherd had shown no more intelligence 
than if he were one of his own sheep. 

“ Be quiet, you imbecile, be quiet! ” said Master Koltz 
to him in a whisper. 

But as the young count's curiosity had been awakened, 
he addressed himself directly to Frik, and asked him what 
he meant by his “ Oh ! ah ! ” 

The shepherd was not a man to retreat, and perhaps 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 113 

really thought that Franz deT^lek might give some advice 
which the village migjit profitably adopt. 

“ I said, ‘ Oh, ah ! ’ ” replied the shepherd, " and I will not 
go back on my word.” 

“ Is there any marvel, then, to visit in the neighbourhood 
of Werst ?” 

“Any marvel ?” replied Master Koltz. 

“No! no ! ” exclaimed the bystanders. And they were 
already in fear at the thought lest a fresh attempt at 
entering the castle would bring fresh misfortunes on them. 

Franz de Telek, not without some surprise, took notice 
of those people whose faces were expressive of alarm in 
all sorts of ways, but all equally unmistakable. 

“ What is this all about? ” he asked. 

“ What is it, sir ? ” replied Rotzko. “ Well, it seems there 
is the Castle of the Carpathians.” 

“ The Castle of the Carpathians ? ” 

“Yes! That is the name this shepherd has just whis¬ 
pered in my ear.” 

And as he spoke Rotzko pointed to Frik, who nodded 
his head without daring to look at his master. 

But a breach was now made in the wall of the private 
life of the superstitious village, and all its history could not 
help going forth through this breach. 

In fact. Master Koltz, who had made up his mind how 
to act, resolved to explain matters himself to the count, 
and told him all he knew about the Castle of the Carpa¬ 
thians. 

Naturally Franz de Telek could not hide the astonish- 

I 


114 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

ment the story caused him, nor the feelings it suggested to 
him. Although he knew little of scientific matters, like 
other young people of his class who live in their castles in 
these Wallachian byways, he was a sensible man. He 
believed but little in apparitions and laughed at legend. 
A castle haunted by spirits merely excited his incredulity. 
In his opinion, in all that Master Koltz had told him there 
was nothing of the marvellous, but only a few facts, more 
or lest proved, to which the people of Werst attributed a 
supernatural origin. The smoke from the donjon, the bell 
ringing violently, could be very easily explained, and the 
lightnings and roarings from within the wall might be 
purely imaginary. 

Franz de Telek did not hesitate to say so, and to joke 
about it, to the great scandal of his listeners. 

“ But, count, there is something else,” said Master 
Koltz. 

“What is that?” 

“ Well, it is impossible to get into this Castle of the 
Carpathians.” 

“ Indeed ? ” 

“ Our forester and our doctor tried to get in a few days 
ago, for the benefit of the village, and they paid dearly for 
their attempt.” 

“What happened to them?” asked Franz de Telek, 
somewhat ironically. 

Master Koltz related in detail the adventures of Nic 
Deck and Doctor Patak. 

“ And so,” said the count, “ when the doctor wanted to 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 115 

get out of the ditch his feet were so stuck to the ground 
that he could not take a step fonvard ?” 

“ Neither a step forward nor a step behind,” added 
M agister Hermod. 

“Your doctor thought so,” replied Franz de Telek. 
“ But it was fear which stuck him by the heels.” 

“Be it so,” replied Master Koltz. “But Nic Deck 
received a frightful shock when he p*ut his hand on the 
ironwork of the drawbridge.” 

“ A terrible shock—” 

“So terrible,” replied the biro, “that he has been in bed 
ever since.” 

“ Not in danger of his life, I hope ? ” said the count. 

“ No, fortunately.” 

That was a fact, an undeniable fact, and Master Koltz 
waited for the explanation Franz de Telek would give. 

“ In all I have just heard there is nothing, I repeat, but 
what is very simple. I have no doubt but what somebody 
is now living in the castle—who, I know not. Anyhow, 
they are not spirits, but people who wish, to lie hidden 
there after taking refuge there—criminals probably.” 

“ Criminals ! ” exclaimed Master Koltz. 

“ Probably ; and as they do not want any one to hunt 
them out, they wish it to be believed that the castle is 
haunted by supernatural beings.” 

“ What! ” said Magister Hermod. “ You think —” 

“ I think you are very superstitious in these parts, that 
the people in the castle know it, and that they wish to keep 
off visitors in that way.” 


n6 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

That this was the true explanation was not unlikely, but 
we need not be astonished if nobody at Werst would 
admit it. 

The young count saw that he had in no way convinced 
an audience who did not wish to be convinced, and so 
he contented himself with adding,— 

“ If you do not care to agree with me, gentlemen, you 
can continue to think what you please about the Castle of 
the Carpathians.” 

“We believe what we have seen,” replied Master Koltz. 

“ And what is—” said the magister. 

“Well. Really, I am sorry I have not a day to spare, 
for Rotzko and I would have paid a visit to your famous 
castle, and I assure you we would soon have found out—” 

“ Visit the castle ! ” exclaimed Master Koltz. 

“ Without hesitation, and the devil himself would not 
have stopped us from getting in,” 

On listening to Franz de T£lek express himself so 
positively, so ironically even, the villagers were seized with 
terror. In treating the spirits of the castle with such 
indifference, would he not bring some disaster on the 
village ? Did not these spirits hear all that passed in the 
inn of the “ King Mathias ” ? Would the voice be heard a 
second time in this room ? 

And thereupon Master Koltz told the young count of 
the circumstances under which the forester had been per¬ 
sonally threatened when he decided on entering the Castle 
of the Carpathians. 

Franz de Telek simply shrugged his shoulders ; then he 



Attacking the wild beasts of the mountains. 


Page 120 


















































I 


4 ; 




« PEW YORK, V., Y 

V 


UBRAR 








A companion no less eccentric 


Page 126 










































The Castle of the Carpathians. 117 

rose, saying that no voice had ever been heard in the room 
as they pretended. Whereupon some of the company 
made for the door, not caring to remain any longer in a 
place where a young sceptic dared say such things. 

But Franz de Telek stopped them with a gesture. 

“Assuredly, gentlemen,” he said, “ I see that the village 
of Werst is under the empire of fear.” 

“And not without reason,” replied Master Koltz. 

“ Well, there is a very simple way of putting a stop to 
the performances which according to you are going on at 
the Castle of the Carpathians. After to-morrow I shall be 
at Karlsburg, and if you like I will tell the town authorities. 
They will send you a few police, and I will answer for it 
that these brave fellows will know how to get into the 
castle and clear out the jokers who arc practising on your 
credulity, or arrest the scoundrels, who are perhaps pre¬ 
paring for some new iniquity.” 

Nothing could be more acceptable than this proposal, 
but yet it was not to tlie taste of the notables of Werst. 
In their opinion neither the police nor the army itself would 
succeed against these superhuman beings, who would know 
how to defend themselves by supernatural means. 

“ But I believe,” continued the young count, “ that you 
have not yet told me to whom this Castle of the Carpa¬ 
thians belongs or belonged ? ” 

“ To an old country family, the family of the Barons of 
Gortz,” said Master Koltz. 

“The family of Gortz ! ” exclaimed Franz de Telek. 

“ The same.” 


i8 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“Is that the family to which Baron Rodolphe be¬ 
longed ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And do you know what has become of him ? ” 

“ No ; for the baron has not come back to the castle for 
years.” 

Franz de Telek had become quite pale, and mechanically 
in an altered voice he repeated the name,— 

“ Rodolphe de Gortz ! ” 


CHAPTER IX. 


The family of the Counts of Telek was one of the most 
ancient and illustrious in Roumania, having been of con* 
siderable importance there before the country conquered 
its independence in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
With all the political movements which abound in the 
history of these provinces the name of the family is 
gloriously connected. 

Less favoured than the famous beech of the Castle of the 
Carpathians, which still possessed three branches, the house 
of Telek was now reduced to one, that of T£lek of Krajowa, 
whose last offspring was the young gentleman who had 
just arrived at the village of Werst. 

During his infancy he had never left the patrimonial 
castle where the Count and Countess of Telek lived. The 
descendants of the family were held in great esteem in the 
country, where they spent their wealth generously. Living 
the liberal, easy life of the country nobility, it was seldom 
that they left their estate at Krajowa more than once a 
year, and that when business took them to the town of 
that name, which was only a few miles away. 

This kind of life had of necessity an influence on the 


20 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


education of their only son, and for long afterwards Franz 
felt the effects of the surroundings amid -which his child¬ 
hood was passed. His only tutor was an old Italian 
priest, who could only teach him what he knew, and he did 
not know much. And so when the boy had become a 
young man he had but a very inadequate knowledge of 
science or art or contemporary literature. To be an 
enthusiastic sportsman, afoot night and day through the 
forests and on the plains, hunting the stag and the wild 
boar, and attacking the wild beasts of the mountains, knife 
in hand, such were the ordinary pastimes of the young 
count, who, being very brave and very resolute,accomplished 
wonders in these rough occupations. 

The Countess of Telek died when her son was scarcely 
fifteen, and he was only one-and-twenty when his father 
died in a hunting accident. 

The grief of young Franz was extreme. As he had 
wept for his mother he wept for his father, who had just 
been taken from him, one after the other, within these few 
years. All his tender feelings, all the affectionate impulses 
of his heart, were then centred in this filial love which had 
been sufficient for him during his childhood and youth. 
But when this love failed him, having no friends and 
his tutor being dead, he found himself alone in the 
world. 

For three years the young count remained at the Castle 
of Krajowa. He could not make up his mind to leave it. 
He lived there without seeking to make any acquaintances 
outside. Once or twice he had been to Bucharest, but that 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


12 


was because certain matters obliged him to go there ; and 
these were but short absences, for he was in haste to return 
to his domain. 

This life could not, however, last for ever, and Franz 
began to feel the want of enlarging the horizon which was 
so restricted by the Roumanian mountains ; and he wished 
to fly beyond it. 

The young count was about twenty-three years old when 
he made up his mind to travel. His wealth enabled him 
to fully gratify his wishes. One day he left the Castle of 
Krajowa to his old servants and left the Wallachian 
country. He took with him Rotzko, an old Roumanian 
soldier, who had been for ten years in the family, and who 
had been the young count’s companion in all his hunting 
expeditions. He was a man of courage and resolution, 
entirely devoted to his master. 

The young count’s intention was to visit Europe and 
to stay a few months in the capitals and important towns 
of the Continent. He considered, not without cause, that 
his education, which had been only begun at the Castle of 
Krajowa, might be completed by what he learnt on a care¬ 
fully planned tour. 

It was to Italy that Franz de Telek wished to go first, 
for he could speak Italian fairly well, the old priest having 
taught him. The attraction of this country, so rich in 
memories, was such that he stayed there four years. He 
only left Venice to go to Florence, he left Rome but to go 
to Naples, constantly returning to these artistic centres, 
from which he could not tear himself away. France, Ger- 


22 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


many, Spain, Russia, England, he would see later on ; he 
would even study them to better advantage—so it seemed 
to him—when age had matured his ideas. On the other 
hand, he must be in all the effervescence of youth to enjoy 
the charms of the great Italian cities. 

Franz de T£lek was twenty-seven when he went to 
Naples for the last time. He intended to spend only a 
few hours there before leaving for Sicily. By the explora¬ 
tion of the ancient Trinacria he purposed to end his tour, 
and then return to his Castle of Krajowa and have a year’s 
rest. 

An unexpected circumstance not only changed his plans, 
but decided his life and changed its course. 

During the few years he had lived in Italy the young 
count had not learned much of the sciences, for which he 
felt no aptitude, but the sense of the beautiful had been 
revealed to him like light to a blind man. With his mind 
widely opened to the splendours of art, he had become 
enthusiastic over the masterpieces of painting, in visiting 
the galleries of Naples, Rome, and Florence. At the same 
time the theatres had made him acquainted with the lyric 
works cf the time, and he became powerfully interested in 
their interpretation by the great artistes. 

It was during his last stay at Naples, and under circum¬ 
stances we are about to relate, that a sentiment of a more 
personal character, of more intensive penetration, took 
possession of his heart. 

There was then at the theatre of San Carlo a celebrated 
singer whose pure voice, finished method, and dramatic 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 123 

ability had won the admiration of all the dilettanti. Up 
to then La Stilla had never sought the applause of 
foreigners, and had never sung any other music than 
Italian, which then held the first place in the art of com¬ 
position. The Carignan Theatre at Turin, the Scala at 
Milan, the Fenice, at Venice, the Alfieri at Florence, 
the Apollo at Rome, the San Carlo at Naples, introduced 
her in turn, and her triumphs left her no room for regret 
that she had not appeared at the other theatres of 
Europe. 

La Stilla, thjen aged five-and-twenty, was a woman of 
ideal beauty, with her long golden hair, the ardour of her 
deep-black eyes, the purity of her complexion, and a 
figure which the chisel of a Praxiteles could not have 
made more perfect. And this woman had become a 
sublime artiste, another Malibran, of whom Musset could 
also say,— 

“ And thy songs in the skies bore away sorrow.” 

But this voice which the most adored of poets has cele¬ 
brated in his immortal stanzas, “ that voice of the heart 
which only finds the heart,” that voice was La Stilla’sin all 
its inexpressible magnificence. 

However, this incomparable prima-donna, who repro¬ 
duced with such perfection the accents of tenderness, the 
fury of the passions, the most powerful feelings of the soul, 
had never, so they said, experienced their effect. Never 
had she loved, never had her eyes responded to the thou¬ 
sand looks which were concentrated on her on the stage. 


124 The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

It seemed that she lived but for her art and only for her 
art. 

The frrst time he saw La Stilla, Franz experienced that 
irresistible ardour which is the essence of a first love. And 
he gave up his plan of leaving Italy, after visiting Sicily, 
and resolved to remain at Naples until the close of the 
season. As if some invisible bond he could not break had 
attached him to the singer, he was at all the performances, 
which the enthusiasm of the public converted into veri¬ 
table triumphs. Many times, incapable of mastering his 
passion, he had tried to obtain access to her house ; but La 
Stilla’s door remained as pitilessly closed against him as 
against so many other fanatic admirers. 

And so it came about that the young count became the 
most to be pitied of men. Always in sight of his love, 
thinking only of the great artiste, living but to see her 
and hear her, he sought no longer to make friends in 
the world to which his name and fortune called him. 

Soon this excitement so increased with Franz that his 
health was in danger. We can imagine what he might have 
suffered if he had had to bear the tortures of jealousy, if 
La Stilla’s heart had belonged to another. But the young 
count had no rival, as he knew, and none could give 
him umbrage—not even a certain peculiar personage, of 
whose appearance and character our story requires more 
notice. 

He was a man between fifty and fifty-five at the time 
Franz de Telek last went to Naples. This incommunica¬ 
tive individual apparently strove to live outside the social 



Page 130. 


The young count waited at the wing 
























































































































































































































































































































Among the Vulkan defiles. 


Page 134 











































The Castle of the Carpathians. 125 

conventionalities that prevail in the higher circles. Nothing 
was known of his family, his position, his past life. He 
was met with to-day at Rome, to-morrow at Florence, 
provided that La Stilla was at Florence or at Rome. In 
fact, he lived but to listen to the renowned singer, who 
then occupied the foremost place in the art of song. 

If Franz de Telek had lived only in the delirium of his 
idolatry for La Stilla since the day he had applauded her, 
or rather had seen her on the stage at Naples, this eccen¬ 
tric dilettante had been following her about for six years. 
But he was not like the young count; in his case it was 
not the woman but the voice which had become so neces¬ 
sary to his life as the air he breathed. Never had he 
sought to see her except on the stage, never had he called 
at her house or attempted to write to her. But every time 
La Stilla appeared, in no matter what theatre of Italy, there 
passed in among the audience a man of tall stature, 
wrapped in a long dark overcoat, and wearing a large hat 
which hid his face. This man would hurry to his seat in a 
private box previously engaged for him, and there he would 
remain, silent and motionless, throughout the performance. 
But as soon as La Stilla had finished her last air, he would 
go away furtively, and no other singer would detain him 
—he had not even heard them. 

Who was this spectator, so strangely assiduous at these 
performances ? La Stilla had in vain sought to know ; and, 
being of a very impressionable nature, she had become quite 
frightened at this curious man—an unreasonable terror, 
but still a very real one. Although she could not see him 


126 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 


in the back of his box, she knew he was there, she felt his 
look imperiously fixed on her, and, greatly troubled by his 
presence, she no longer heard the cheers with which the 
public welcomed her appearance on the scene. 

We have said that this personage had never approached 
La Stilla. Nothing could be truer. But if he had not 
tried to make her acquaintance—and we must particularly 
insist on this point—all that could remind him of the artiste 
had been the object of his constant attention. Thus he 
possessed the finest of the portraits which the great painter, 
Michel Gregorio, had made of the singer. This was, 
indeed, La Stilla impassioned, vibrating, sublime, incarnate 
in one of her finest characters, and the portrait acquired 
for its price in gold was well worth the price her wealthy 
admirer had paid for it. 

If this eccentric individual was invariably alone when he 
occupied his box during La Stilla’s performances, if he never 
went out of his rooms but to go to the theatre, it must not 
be supposed that he lived in absolute isolation. No ; a 
companion no less eccentric shared his existence. 

This individual was known as Orfanik. How old was 
he ? whence came he ? where was he born ? No one could 
have answered those three questions. To listen to him— 
for he was only too glad to talk—he was one of those un¬ 
recognized geniuses who have taken an aversion to the 
world ; and it was supposed, and not without reason, that 
he was some poor devil of an inventor who was chiefly 
supported by the purse of his protector. 

Orfanik was of middle height, thin, sickly, consumptive, 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


127 


and pale. He was remarkable for a black patch over his 
right eye, which he had lost in some experiment; and on 
his n se was a pair of spectacles, the only lens being that 
over his left eye, which glowed with a greenish look. 
During his solitary walks, he gesticulated as if he were 
talking to some invisible being who listened without ever 
answering. 

These two characters, the strange melomaniac and the 
no less strange Orfanik, were known, at least as much as 
they wished to be, in all the towns of Italy to which the 
theatrical season regularly took them. They had the 
privilege of exciting public curiosity; and although the 
admirer of La Stilla had always repulsed the reporters and 
their indiscreet interviews, they had at last discovered his 
name and nationality He was of Roumanian birth, and 
the first time Franz de Telek asked who he was, they told 
him,— 

“ The Baron Rodolphe de Gortz.” 

Such was the state of affairs when the young count 
arrived at Naples. For two months the theatre of San 
Carlo had been full, and the success of La Stilla grew 
greater every evening. Never had she done herself more 
justice in her different characters, never had she called 
forth more enthusiastic ov'ations. 

At each performance, while Franz occupied his orchestra- 
stall, the Baron de Gortz sat at the back of his box, ab¬ 
sorbed in this ideal song, impregnated with this divine 
vjice, without which it seemed he could not live. 

It was then that a rumour spread at Naples—a rumour 


128 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


the public refused to believe, but which eventually alarmed 
the dilettanti. 

It was said that at the close of the season La Stilla was 
going to retire from the stage. What! In all the posses¬ 
sion of her talent, in all the plenitude of her beauty, in the 
apogee of her artistic career, was it possible she thought of 
retiring ? 

Unlikely as it seemed, it was true, and undoubtedly the 
Baron de Gortz had something to do with her resolve. 

This spectator with his mysterious proceedings, always 
there, although invisible behind the railing of his box, had 
at length provoked in La Stilla a nervous, persistent emo¬ 
tion which she could not overcome. Whenever she came 
on the stage she felt an influence come over her, and the 
excitement, which was apparent enough to the public, had 
gradually injured her health. 

To leave Naples, to fly to Rome, to Venice, or to some 
other town of the peninsula, would not, she knew, deliver 
her from the presence of Baron de Gortz. She would not 
even escape him by abandoning Italy for Germany, Russia, 
or France. He would follow her wherever she made her¬ 
self heard ; and to deliver herself from this besetting im¬ 
portunity, her only chance was to abandon the stage. 

Two months before the rumour of her retirement had 
been heard, Franz de Telek had taken a step with regard 
to the singer, the consequences of which were to be an 
irreparable catastrophe. 

Free to do as he liked, and master of an immense fortune, 
he had succeeded in obtaining admission to La Stilla’s 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 129 

house, and had made her the offer of becoming Countess 
of Telek. 

La Stilla had long known of the feelings with which 
she had inspired the young count. She had said to herself 
that he was a gentleman to whom any woman, even of the 
highest rank, would be happy to trust her life and happi¬ 
ness. And in the state of mind she then was, when Franz 
de Telek offered her his name, she received the offer with 
a sympathy she took no pains to hide. She felt herself 
loved in such a way that she consented to become the wife 
of Count Telek, and without regret abandon her dramatic 
career. 

The news was then true ; La Stilla would not appear 
again on any stage, as soon as the San Carlo season came 
to an end. In fact, her marriage, of which there had been 
some suspicions, was announced as certain. 

This, as may be imagined, caused considerable excite¬ 
ment not only in the professional world, but in the fashion¬ 
able world of Italy. After refusing to believe in the 
realization of this project, they had to admit it. Hatred 
and jealousy arose against the young count who was to 
take her away from her art, her success, the idolatry of 
the dilettanti, the greatest singer of her age. Even personal 
threats were directed against Franz de Telek—which 
threats in no way troubled him. 

But if it was thus with the public, we can imagine what 
Rodolphe de Gortz felt at the thought of losing La Stilla, 
and that he would lose with her all that was life to him. 
There was a rumour that he was about to commit suicide. 

K 


130 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

t w as certain that from this day Orfanik was not seen In 
the streets of Naples. He never left Baron Rodolphe. 
Many times he was with him in the box which the baron 
occupied at every performance—and that he had never 
done before, being, like other learned men, absolutely re¬ 
fractory to the sensual charm of music. 

The days, however, went by ; the excitement did not sub¬ 
side, and it was at its height the last time La Stilla was to 
appear on the stage. It was in the superb character of 
Angelica in “ Orlando,” the masterpiece of Arconati, that 
she was to bid her farewell to the public. 

That night San Carlo was but a tenth large enough to 
hold the people who crowded at its doors and for the most 
part remained outside. It was feared that there would be 
a manifestation against Count de Telek, if not while La 
Stilla was on the stage, at least when the curtain fell on the 
last act. 

The Baron de Gortz had taken his place in his box, and 
this time Orfanik was again with him. 

La Stilla appeared, more agitated than she had ever 
been. She recovered herself, however; she abandoned 
herself to her inspiration, and sang with such perfection, 
such ineffable talent, that the indescribable enthusiasm she 
excited among the audience rose almost to delirium. 

During the performance the young count waited at the 
wing, impatient, nervous, feverish, cursing the length of the 
scenes, and angry at the delays provoked by the applause 
and recalls. Ah ! how they hindered him from carrying 
off from this theatre her who was to be the Countess of 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 13 i 

Telek ,• the adored woman he would take far, far away, so 
far that she would belong but to him, to him alone. 

At last came the final most dramatic scene, in which 
the heroine of Orlando dies. Never had the admirable 
music of Arconati appeared more impressive, never had 
La Stilla interpreted it with more impassioned emphasis. 
All her soul seemed to distil itself through her lips. And 
yet one would have said that this voice was about to break, 
for it was to be no longer heard. 

At this moment the railing of the Baron de Gortz’s box 
was lowered. Over it there appeared that strange head 
with the long grizzly hair and the eyes of flame. It 
showed itself, that ecstatic face, frightful in its pallor, and 
from the wing Franz saw it in the light for the first time. 

La Stilla was then revelling in the full power of that 
ravishing stretto of the final air. She had just repeated 
that phrase with the sublime sentiment,— 

“ I namorata, mio cuore tremante 
VoglioTllorira ,, 

Suddenly she stopped. 

Baron de Gortz’s face terrified her. An inexplicable 
terror paralyzed her. She put her hand to her mouth ; it 
reddened with blood. She staggered ; she fell— 

The audience rose, trembling, bewildered, distracted. 

A cry escaped from Baron de Gortz’s box. 

Franz rushed on to the stage; he took La Stilla in his 
arms , he lifted her, he looked at her, he called her. 

“ Dead ! dead ! ” he cried. “ She is dead ! ” 


K 2 


132 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Yes ! La Stilla was dead. A blood-vessel had broken. 
Her song died with her last sigh. 

The young count was taken back to his hotel in such a 
state that his reason was despaired of. He was unable to 
be present at La Stilla’s funeral, which took place amid an 
immense crowd of the Neapolitan population. 

It was at the cemetery of Campo Santo Nuovo that the 
singer was buried, and all that could be read on the marble 
was— 

“ Stilla.” 

The night of the funeral a man went to the Campo Santo 
Nuovo. There with haggard eyes, bowed head, and lips 
clenched as if they had been sealed by death, he looked for 
a long time at the spot where La Stilla lay ; and he 
seemed to listen as if the voice of the great artiste was to 
be heard for the last time from her grave 

It was Rodolphe de Gortz. 

That very night the Baron de Gortz, accompanied by 
Orfanik, left Naples, and no one knew what became of 
him. But the next morning a letter was received by the 
young count. The letter contained but these words :— 

“It is you who have killed her. Woe to ycu, Count de 
Telek! 


“Rodolphe de Gortz.” 


CHAPTER X. 


SUCH had been tH; lamentable history. 

For a month Franz de Telek’s life was in danger. He 
recognized nobody—not even his man Rotzko. In the 
height of his fever but one name escaped his lips, which 
were ready to part with their last breath : it was that of 
La Stilla. 

The young count did not die. The skill of the doctors, 
the incessant care of Rotzko, together with his own youth 
and constitution, saved Franz de Telek. His reason 
emerged uninjured from this terrible struggle. But when 
memory returned to him, when he recalled the final tragic 
scene in “ Orlando/’ in which the soul of the artiste had 
left her,— 

“ Stilla ! my Stilla ! ” he cried, stretching out his hands 
as if he were applauding. 

As soon as his master could leave his bed, Rotzko 
persuaded him to leave this accursed town, and allow him¬ 
self to be carried home to the Castle of Krajowa. But 
before he left Naples the young count wished to go and 
pray over the grave of the dead, and bid her a last and 
eternal farewell. 

Rotzko accompanied him to Campo Santo Nuovo. 


r 34 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


There Franz threw himself on the cruel ground—-he would 
have torn it up with his finger-nails to bury himself by her 
side. Rotzko at last managed to get him away from the 
grave, where he had left all his life and all his happi¬ 
ness. 

A few days afterwards Franz de Telelc had returned to 
Krajowa. to his old family estate. Here he lived for four 
years in absolute retirement, never leaving the castle. 
Neither time nor distance could alleviate his grief. He 
would have forgotten, but it was impossible. The 
remembrance of La Stilla, vivid as on the first day. was 
bound up with his life, and the wound would close only 
with death. 

At the time our story begins the young count had left 
the castle for some weeks. What long and pressing 
arguments Rotzko had had to prevail on his master to 
abandon the solitude in which he was wasting away! 
Consolation might be impossible, but an attempt at dis¬ 
traction might at least be made. 

A plan of a tour was then decided on, which consisted 
in first visiting the Transylvanian provinces. Later, Rotzko 
hoped that the young count would agree to resume the 
European jou«rney which had been interrupted by the sad 
events at Naples. 

Franz de Telek had set out for only a short exploration. 
He and Rotzko had crossed the Wallachian plains up to 
the imposing mass of the Carpathians ; they had been 
among the Vulkan defiles, and after an ascent of Retyezat 
and an excursion across the valley of the Maros, they had 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 135 

come for a rest to the village of Werst, to the “ King 
Mathias ” inn. 

We know the state of affairs when Franz de Telek 
arrived, and how he had been informed of the incom¬ 
prehensible occurrences of which the castle had been the 
scene. We also know how he had ascertained that the 
castle belonged to Baron Rodolphe de Gortz. 

The effect produced by this name was too apparent for 
Master Koltz and the other notables not to notice it. And 
Rotzko would have cheerfully sent to the devil this 
Master Koltz, who had so inopportunely uttered it, and 
his stupid stories. Why should some ill-chance have 
brought Franz de Telek to this very village of Werst, in 
the neighbourhood of the Castle of the Carpathians ! 

The young count had become silent. His look, wander¬ 
ing from one to the other, only too clearly indicated the 
deep trouble of his mind, which he was seeking in vain to 
calm. 

Master Koltz and his friends understood that some 
mysterious tie must exist between the Count de Telek and 
the Baron de Gortz; but, inquisitive as they were, they 
maintained a seemly reserve, and did not seek to take an 
advantage. Later on they would see what they could do. 

A few minutes afterwards every one had left the “ King 
Mathias,” much perplexed at this extraordinary chain of 
adventures, which foreboded no good to the village. 

And now that the young count knew to whom the 
Castle of the Carpathians belonged, would he keep his 
promise? Ifhewentto Karlsburg, would he report the 


136 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


matter to the authorities and demand their intervention ? 
That was what the biro, the schoolmaster, Doctor Patak, 
and others were asking. If he did not do so. Master Kottz 
had resolved to do so. The police being informed of what 
had occurred, they would visit the castle, they would see 
if it were haunted by spirits or inhabited by criminals, for 
the village could remain no longer under such a state of 
affairs, 

This would, it is true, be quite useless in the opinion 
of most of the inhabitants. To attack the spirits ! The 
swords of the gendarmes would be broken like glass, and 
their guns would miss fire each time. 

Franz de Telek, left alone in the large room of the 
“King Mathias,” abandoned himself to the recollections 
which the name of Baron de Gortz had so unhappily 
evoked. 

After remaining in an armchair for an hour, as if he 
were quite exhausted, he rose, left the saloon, and went 
out to the end of the terrace and looked away in the 
distance. 

On the Plesa ridge, bounded by the Orgall plateau, rose 
the Castle of the Carpathians. 

There had lived that strange personage, the frequenter 
of San Carlo, the man who had inspired such insurmount¬ 
able terror in the unfortunate La Stilla. But at present the 
castle was deserted, and Baron de Gortz had not returned 
to it since he had fled from Naples. None knew what 
had become of him, and it was possible he had put an end 
to his existence alter the death of the great artiste. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 137 

Franz wandered in this way across the field of 
supposition, knowing not where to stop. On the other 
hand, the adventure of the forester Nic Deck to a certain 
extent troubled him, and he would have liked to have 
unravelled the mystery, if it were only to reassure the 
people of Werst. 

Added to this, the young count had no doubt that it was 
a band of thieves who had taken refuge in the castle, and 
he had resolved to keep his promise, and put a stop to the 
manoeuvres of these sham ghosts by giving information to 
the police at Karlsburg. 

But before taking steps in the matter, Franz resolved to 
have the most circumstantial details of the affair. For 
this object the best thing to do was to apply to the 
young forester in person ; and about three o’clock in the 
afternoon, before returning to the inn, he presented him¬ 
self at the biro's house. 

Master *Koltz showed that he was much honoured to 
receive a gentleman like the Count de Telek, this 
descendant of a noble Roumanian race, to whom the 
village of Werst would be indebted for the recovery of its 
peace and prosperity, for then travellers would return to 
visit the country, and pay the customary tolls, without 
having to fear the malevolent spirits of the Castle of the 
Carpathians, etc., etc. 

Franz de Telek thanked Master Koltz for his com 
pliments, and asked to be allowed to see Nic Deck if there 
were no objection. 

“None at all, count,” replied the biro. “The gallant 


138 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


Nic is going on as well as possible, and will soon return to 
his work.” 

And turning to his daughter, who had just entered the 
room, he said,— 

“ Is that not true, Miriota ? ” 

“ May Heaven grant it so, my father ! ” replied Miriota 
in an agitated voice. 

Franz was charmed by the girl’s graceful greeting. And 
seeing she was still anxious regarding the state of her 
betrothed, he hastened to ask her for some explanation on 
the subject. 

“From what I have heard,” he said, “ Nic Deck has not 
been seriously hurt.” 

“No, count,” said Miriota, “and Heaven be praised 
for it/’ 

“You have a physician at Werst?” 

“ Hum ! ” said Master Koltz in a tone that was not very 
flattering to the old quarantine man. 

“ We have Doctor Patak,” replied Miriota. 

“ He who accompanied Nic Deck to the Castle of the 
Carpathians ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ I should like to see your betrothed for his own sake, 
and obtain the most precise details of this adventure.” 

“ He will be glad to give you them, even though it may 
fatigue him a little.” 

“ Oh ! I will not abuse the opportunity, and I will do 
nothing that can injure Nic Deck.” 

“ I know that.” 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 139 

“ When is your marriage to take place ? ” 

“ In a fortnight,” said the biro. 

“Then I shall have the pleasure of being present, if 
Master Koltz will give me an invitation—” 

“ Such an honour, count—” 

“In a fortnight, then, it is understood ; and I am sure 
that Nic Deck will be well again as soon as he can take a 
•walk with his good-looking betrothed.” 

“ God protect him ! ” replied the girl as she blushed. 

And her charming face betrayed such apparent anxiety 
that Franz asked her the reason. 

“Yes, may God protect him ! ” replied Miriota ; “for in 
endeavouring to enter the castle in spite of the prohibition, 
Nic has defied the spirits. And who knows if they may 
not set themselves to injure him all his life— ” 

" Oh ! as for that/’ replied Franz, “ we will have it all put 
straight, I promise you.” 

“ Nothing will happen to my poor Nic? ” 

“ Nothing ; and, thanks to the police, you will be able 
to visit the castle in a few days, and be quite as safe as in 
the street at Werst.” 

The young count, thinking it inopportune to discuss the 
question of the supernatural, asked Miriota to show him 
the way to the forester’s room. 

This the girl hastened to do, and then she left him alone 
with her betrothed. 

Nic Deck had been informed of the arrival of the two 
travellers at the “ King Mathias ” inn. Seated in an old 
armchair as large as a sentry-box, he rose to receive his 


140 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

visitor. As he now suffered but little from the paralysis 
with which he had been momentarily struck, he was 
sufficiently well to reply to the count’s questions. 

“ Nic Deck,” said Franz, affir a friendly shake of the 
hand, “ I would first ask you if you really believe in the 
presence of evil spirits at the Castle of the Carpa¬ 
thians ? ” 

“I am compelled to believe it,” replied Nic Deck. 

“ And it was they who kept you from getting over the 
castle wall ? ” 

“ I have no doubt of it.” 

a And why, if you please ? ” 

* e Because if they were not spirits, what happened to me 
would be inexplicable.” 

“ Will you have the goodness to tell me, without omitting 
anything, what really did happen ? ” 

“ Willingly.” 

Nic Deck told his story item by item. He could only 
confirm the facts which Franz had heard in his conversa¬ 
tion with the guests at the “ King Mathias ”—facts on which, 
as we know, the young count put a purely natural inter¬ 
pretation. 

In short, the occurrences of this night of adventure 
could be easily explained if human beings, criminal or 
otherwise, occupied the castle, and had the machinery 
capable of producing these phantasmal effects. As to 
Doctor Patak’s peculiar assertion that he was chained to 
the ground by some force, it could only be supposed that 
he had been the sport of some illusion. Wiiat was most 



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Franz had left the inn. 


Page 147 































The Castle of the Carpathians. 141 

likely was that his limbs had failed him simply because 
he was mad with terror, and that Franz declared to the 
young forester. 

“ What ! ” said Nic Deck, " would it be at the moment 
he wanted to run that his legs would fail the coward ? 
That is hardly likely, you must admit/’ 

“Well,” continued Franz, “ let us admit that his legs 
were caught in some trap, probably hidden under the 
grass at the bottom of the ditch.” 

“ When a trap closes,” said the forester, “ it hurts you 
cruelly, it tears your flesh, and Doctor Patak’s legs have 
no trace of a wound.” 

“Your observation is correct, Nic Deck; but if it be 
true that the doctor could not get away, it must be that 
his legs were caught in some snare.” 

“Then I will ask you how this snare could open of itself 
to set the doctor at liberty ? ” 

Franz was too much puzzled to reply. 

“ But, count, I leave to you all that concerns Doctor 
Patak. After all, I can only speak of what I know of 
myself.” 

“Yes, let us leave the doctor, and speak of what 
happened to you, Nic Deck.” 

“ What happened to me was clear enough. There is no 
doubt I received a terrible shock, and that in a way that 
is unnatural.” 

“ There is no appearance of a wound on your body ? ” 
asked Franz. 

“ None ; and yet I was struck with terrible violence.” 


142 


The Castle of the Carpathians.' 


“Was it just when you put your hand on the ironwork 
of the drawbridge ? ” 

“ Yes; just as I touched it, I seemed as if I were 
paralyzed. Fortunately my hand which held the chain 
did not leave go, and I slipped down into the bottom of 
the ditch, where the doctor found me senseless.” 

Franz shook his head with the air of a man whom these 
explanations left incredulous. 

“You see,” continued Nic Deck, “what I have told you 
is no dream ; and if for eight days I remained full length 
on the bed, without the use of arms or legs, it is not 
reasonable to say I must have imagined it all.” 

“ I do not attempt to do that,” said the count; “it is 
only too certain you received a brutal shock.” 

“ Brutal and diabolic.” 

“No—and in that we differ, Nic Deck. You believe 
you were struck by some supernatural being, and I do 
not believe there are supernatural beings, either good or 
evil—” 

“Will you then explain what happened to me?” 

“I cannot do that yet, Nic Deck; but rest assured all 
will be explained, and in a most simple manner.” 

“ May God grant it so ! ” 

“Tell me,” said Franz, “has this castle belonged all 
along to the Gortz family ? ” 

“Yes; and it belongs to it now, although the last 
descendant of the family, Baron Rodolphe, disappeared 
and no one has heard of him since.” 

“ When did he disappear ? ” 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


M3 


“ About twenty years ago.” 

“ Twenty years ? ” 

“Yes. One day Baron Rodolphe left the castle, of 
which the last servant died a few months after his depar¬ 
ture ; and no one has seen him since.” 

“ And since then no one has set foot in the castle ? ” 

“ No one.” 

“ And what is thought about him in the neighbour¬ 
hood ? ” 

“ It is supposed that Baron Rodolphe died abroad a 
short time after he disappeared.” 

“Then it is supposed wrong, Nic Deck. The baron is 
still alive—at least he was so five years ago.” 

“ He is alive ? ” 

“Yes, in Italy—at Naples.” 

“You have seen him ?” 

“ I have seen him ? ” 

“ And during the five years ? ” 

“ I have heard nothing about him.” 

The young forester thought for a moment or so. An 
idea had occurred to him, an idea he hesitated to formulate. 
At length he made up his mind, and, raising his head and 
knitting his brow, he said,— 

“ It is not supposable that Baron de Gortz has returned 
to the country with the intention of shutting himself up 
in the castle ?” 

“No—it is not supposable, Nic Deck.” 

“ What object would he have in hiding himself, in never 
letting anybody come near him ? ” 


144 The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

“None,” replied Franz de Telek. 

And yet this was the thought which had begun to take 
shape in the mind of the young count. Was it not 
possible that this personage, whose existence had always 
been so enigmatic, had taken refuge in the castle after he 
left Naples ? There, thanks to superstitious beliefs skil¬ 
fully acted upon, would it not be easy for him to live 
in isolation, to defend himself against every unwelcome 
search, it being understood that he knew the state of 
mind that prevailed in the surrounding country ? 

But yet Franz thought it useless to launch the Wer- 
stians on this hypothesis. It would have been necessary 
to have put them in possession of facts which were too 
personal to him. Besides, he would have convinced no¬ 
body, and that he saw clearly enough when Nic Deck 
added,— 

“If it is Baron Rodolphe who is in the castle, we shall 
have to believe that Baron Rodolphe is the Chort, for 
only the Chort could have treated me in that way.” 

Desirous of not returning over the same ground, Franz 
changed the course of the conversation. After employ¬ 
ing every means to reassure the young forester as to the 
consequences of his attempt, he made him promise not to 
renew it. That was not his affair, it was the business 
of the authorit es, and the Karlsburg police would 
know how to discover the mystery of the Castle of the 
Carpathians. 

The young count then took leave of Nic Deck, recom¬ 
mending him to get well as quickly as possible, so as not 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


145 


to delay his marriage with the fair Miriota, at which he 
promised to be present. 

Absoi bed in his reflections, Franz returned to the “ King 
Mathias ” and did not go out again that day. 

At six o’clock Jonas served his dinner in the large 
room, when by a praiseworthy feeling of reserve neither 
Master Koltz nor any of the villagers came to trouble his 
solitude. 

About eight o’clock Rotzko said to the young 
count,— 

“ You have no further need of me, master?” 

“ No, Rotzko.” 

“ Then I will go and smoke my pipe on the terrace.” 

“ Go, Rotzko, go.” 

Lounging in an armchair, Franz again began to think 
of all that had passed. He was at Naples during the 
last performance at the San Carlo Theatre. He saw 
the Baron de Gortz at the moment when, for the first time, 
this man appeared to him, his head out of the box, his 
look ardently fixed on the artiste as if he would fascinate 
her. 

Then his thoughts recurred to the letter signed by this 
strange personage, which accused him, Franz de Telek, of 
having killed La Stilla. 

Lost in his recollections, Franz felt sleep come over him 
little by little. But he was still in that transition state 
when one can perceive the least noise, when a surprising 
phenomenon took place. 

It seemed that a voice sweet and modulated made 

L 


146 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

itself heard in this room where Franz was aione, quite 
alone. 

Without knowing whether he dreamt or not. Franz rose 
and listened. 

Yes! It seemed as though a mouth came close to his 
ear, and invisible lips gave forth the expressive melody of 
Stefano inspired by these words,— 

“ Nel giardino de’ mille fiori 
Andiamo, mio cuore. . . .” 

This romance Franz knew. This romance of ineffable 
sweetness La Stilla had sung in the concert she had given 
at the San Carlo Theatre before her farewell performance. 

Unconsciously Franz abandoned himself to the charm 
of hearing it once again. 

Then the phrase ended, and the voice, gradually growing 
fainter, died away with the last vibrations of the air. 

But Franz roused himself from his torpor. He 
straightened himself up abruptly. He held his breath to 
seize some distant echo of this voice which went to his 
heart. 

All was silent within and without. 

“ Her voice ! ” he murmured. “Yes! it was really her 
voice—the voice I loved so much.” 

Then returning to himself he ?aid,— 

“ X was asleep, and I dreamed,” 


CHAPTER XT. 


The count awoke at dawn, his mind still troubled with the 
visions cf the night. 

In the morning he was to leave the village of Werst on 
the road to Kolosvar. 

After visiting the manufacturing towns of Petroseny and 
Livadzel, Franz's intention was to stay an entire day at 
Karlsburg, before stopping some time in the capital of 
Transylvania. From there the railway would take him 
across the provinces of Central Hungary, where his journey 
would end 

Franz had left the inn, and, walking on the terrace with 
his field-glass at his eyes, he was examining with deep 
emotion the outlines of the castle, which the sun was 
showing up so clearly on the Orgall plateau. 

And his reflections bore on this point:—When he reached 
Karlsburg, would he keep the promise he had made to the 
people of Werst ? Would he inform the police of what , 
had happened at the Castle of the Carpathians ? 

When the young count had undertaken to restore peace 
to the village, he had no doubt but that the castle was the 
refuge of some gang of criminals, or, at least, of people of 
doubtful repute, who having some interest in not being 

I, 2 


148 Tiie Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

sought after, had taken steps to prevent any one approach¬ 
ing them. 

But since the previous day Franz had been thinking the 
matter over A change had come over his thoughts, and 
he now hesitated. 

For five years the last descendant of the family of 
Gortz, Baron Rodolphe, had disappeared, and what had 
become of him no one knew. Doubtless rumour had said 
he was dead, a short time after his departure from Naples. 
But was that true ? What proof had they of his death ? 
Perhaps the Baron de Gortz was alive, and if he lived, why 
should he not have returned to the castle of his ancestors ? 
Why should not Orfanik, his only familiar friend, have 
accompanied him, and why should not this strange 
physician be the author and manager of these phenomena 
which caused such terror in the country ? 

It will be admitted that this hypothesis appeared some¬ 
what plausible ; and if Baron Rodolphe de Gortz and 
Orfanik had taken refuge in the castle, it was natural that 
they would try and make it unapproachable, so as to live 
that life of isolation which was in accordance with their 
habits and characters. 

If this were the case, what ought the count to do ? Was 
it desirable that he should interfere in the private affairs 
of the Baron de Gortz ? This he was asking himself, 
weighing the pros and cons of the question, when Rotzko 
came to rejoin him on the terrace. 

When he had told him of what he had been thinking,— 

“ Master,” replied Rotzko, “ it is possible that this may 



“ May your journey be fortunate ! ” 


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A chaos in all its horror. 


Page 154 


























The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 149 

be the Baron de Goltz who is giving himself over to every 
diabolic imagination. Well, if that is so, my advice is 
not to mix ourselves up with his affairs. The poltroons of 
Werst will get out of their difficulty in their own way— 
that is their business, and we have no reason for troubling 
ourselves about bringing peace to this village.” 

“Quite so,” said Franz; “and all things considered, I 
think you are right, my brave Rotzko.” 

“I think so,” said Rotzko simply. 

“ As to Master Koltz and the others, they now know 
what to do to finish up with the pretended spirits at the 
castle.” 

“Undoubtedly. All they have to do is to tell the 
Karlsburg police.” 

“ We will start after breakfast.” 

“All will be ready,” 

“ But before we return down the valley of the Syl, we 
will go round towards Plesa.” 

“ And why ? ” 

“I wish to see this Castle of the Carpathians a little 
nearer, if possible.” 

“ For what purpose ?” 

“ Fancy, Rotzko ; a mere fancy, which will not delay us 
half a day.” 

Rotzko was much annoyed at this decision, which he 
looked upon as useless. All it could do would be to 
recall the memory of the past, which he tried his best to 
avoid. This time he tried in vain, and he had to yield to 
his master’s inflexible resolution. 


i^o The Castle of the Carpathians, 

Franz, as if he had become subject to some irresistible 
influence, felt himself drawn towards the castle. Without 
his being aware of it, this attraction might be due to the 
dream in which he had heard the voice of La Stilla murmur 
the plaintive melody of Stefano. 

But had he been dreaming? Yes, that is what he 
was asking himself now that he remembered that in this 
same room of the “ King Mathias ” a voice had already made 
itself heard—that voice which Nic Deck had so imprudently 
defied. In the count’s mental condition there was nothing 
surprising in his forming the plan of going to the castle, 
to the foot of its wall, without any thought of entering. 

Franz de Telek had, of course, no intention of telling 
the inhabitants of Werst of his journey. These people 
would doubtless have joined Rotzko in dissuading him 
from approaching the castle, and he had ordered his man 
to be silent regarding it. When they saw him descending 
the village towards the valley of the Syl, everybody 
imagined they were on their way to Karlsburg. But from 
the terrace he had remarked that another road skirted the 
base of Retyezat up to the Vulkan. It would thus be 
possible to climb the ridge of Plesa towards the castle 
without passing again through the village, and consequently 
without being seen by Master Koltz or the others. 

About noon, having settled without discussion the some¬ 
what inflated bill which Jonas presented to the accom¬ 
paniment of his best smile, Franz prepared to leave 
Werst. 

Master Koltz, the fair Miriota, Magister Hermod. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 15 i 

Doctor Patak, the shepherd Frik, and a number of the 
other inhabitants had come to bid him farewell. 

The young forester had even left his room, and it was 
clear enough would soon be on his legs again—for which 
the doctor took all the honour to himself. 

“ I congratulate you, Nic Deck,” said Franz co him, 
“both you and your betrothed.” 

“ We are much obliged to you,” said the girl, radiant 
with happiness. 

“May your journey be fortunate! ” added the forester. 

“ Yes—may it be so ! ” replied Franz, though his fore¬ 
head was a little clouded. 

“ Monsieur le Comte/’ said Master Koltz, “ we beg that 
you will not forget the information you promised to give 
at Karlsburg.” 

“ I will not forget it, Master Koltz,” replied Franz ; “ but 
should I be delayed on my journey, you know the very 
simple means of disembarrassing yourselves of your 
troublesome neighbours, and the castle will soon inspire 
no fear among the brave people of Werst.” 

“Thatis easily said/’ murmured the magister. 

“ And easily done,” replied Franz. “ Before forty-eight 
hours, if you like, the police will have settled up with 
whoever is hiding in the castle.” 

“ Except in the very probable case that they are spirits,” 
said the shepherd Frik. 

“ Even then/’ said Franz, slightly shrugging his 
shoulders. 

“ Monsieur le Comte,” said Doctor Patak, “ if you had 


152 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

accompanied me and Nic Deck, you might not talk about 
them as you do ! ” 

“I should be astonished if I did not,” replied Franz, 
“even if, like you, I had been so strangely detained by the 
feet in the castle ditch.”* 

“ By the feet—yes, count, or rather by the boots! 
Unless you suppose that in my state of mind 1 dreamt—” 

“I suppose nothing,” said Franz, “and will not try to 
explain what appears inexplicable. But be assured that if 
the gendarmes come to visit the Castle of the Carpathians, 
their boots, which are accustomed to discipline, will not 
take root like yours.” 

And with that parting shot at the doctor the count 
received for the last time the respects of the innkeeper of 
the “ King Mathias ”—so honoured to have had the honour 
of the honourable Franz de Telek, etc. After a salute to 
Master Koltz, Nic Deck, his betrothed, and the inhabitants 
in the road, he made a sign to Rotzko, and both set out at 
a good pace down the road. 

In less than an hour Franz and his man had reached 
the right bank of the river which flowed round the southern 
base of Retyezat. 

Rotzko had made up his mind to make no observation 
to his master; it would have been useless to have done so. 
Accustomed to obey him in military style, if the young 
count met with some perilous adventure he would know, 
how to get him out of it. 

After two hours' walking Franz and Rotzko stopped for 
a snort rest. 


The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 153 

At this place the Wallachian Syl, which had been curving 
gently towards the right, approached the road by rather a 
sharp turn. On the other side was the Plesa and the 
Orgall plateau, at the distance of about a league. Franz 
then had to leave the Syl if he wished to cross the hill in 
the direction of the castle. 

Evidently this roundabout way, chosen for the purpose 
of avoiding a return through Werst, must have doubled the 
distance which separated the castle from the village. 
Nevertheless it was still broad daylight when Franz and 
Rotzko reached the crest of the Orgall plateau. The 
young count would thus have time to see the castle from 
the outside. Then he could wait until evening before 
going back towards Werst, and it would be easy to follow 
the road without being seen. Franz’s intention was to 
pass the night at Livadzel, a little town situated at the 
confluence of the Syls, and to resume the road to Karlsburg 
in the morning. 

The halt lasted half an hour. Franz, deep in his 
remembrances, much agitated at the thought that Baron 
de Gortz had perhaps concealed his existence in this castle, 
said not a word. 

And Rotzko had to make a great effort to keep from 
saying to him,— 

“It is useless to go further, master ! Turn your back on 
this cursed castle and let us be off.” 

They began to follow the thalweg of the valley ; but 
first they had to cross a thicket in which there was no 
footpath. Patches of the ground had been deeply cut into, 


154 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

for in the rainy season the Syl frequently overflows, and 
flows in tumultuous torrents over the ground, which it 
converts into marsh. This caused some difficulty in the 
advance, and consequently some delay ; and it took an 
hour to get back on the Vulkan road, which was reached 
about five o’clock. 

The right flank of Plesa is not covered with the forest 
such as Nic Deck had to cu.t his way through with an axe ; 
but its difficulties were of another kind. There were heaps 
of moraines, among which they could not venture with¬ 
out caution ; sudden changes of level, deep excavations, 
great blocks dangerously unsettled on their bases and 
standing up like the seracs of Alpine regions, all the con¬ 
fusion of the piles of enormous stones which avalanches 
had precipitated from the summit of the mountain—in fact, 
a veritable chaos in all its horror. 

To climb a slope like this took a good hour’s hard work. 
It seemed indeed that the Castle of the Carpathians was 
sufficiently defended by the impracticability of its ap¬ 
proaches. And perhaps Rotzko hoped that there would 
be obstacles it would be impossible to surmount, although 
there were none. 

Beyond the zone of blocks and hollows, the outer crest 
of the Orgall plateau was eventually reached. From there 
the outline of the castle was clear enough in the midst of 
this mournful desert, from which for so many years fear 
had kept away the natives of the district. 

It should be noticed that Franz and Rotzko had ap¬ 
proached the castle on its northern face ; Nic Deck and 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 155 

Doctor Patak had attacked it on the east by taking the 
left of the Plesa and leaving the torrent of Nyad to the 
right. The two directions formed a somewhat wide angle, 
of which the apex was the central donjon. On the 
northern side it was impossible to obtain admittance, for 
there was neither gate nor drawbridge, and the wall, in 
following the irregularities of the plateau, ran to a con¬ 
siderable height. 

But it mattered little that access was impossible on this 
side, for the young count had no intention of entering 
within the walls. 

It was half-past seven when Franz de Telek and 
Rotzko stopped at the extreme end of the Orgall plateau. 
Before them rose this barbaric pile of buildings spread out 
in the gloom, and of much the same colour as that of the 
Plesa rocks. To the left, the wall made a sudden bend, 
flanked by the bastion at the angle. There, on the plat¬ 
form above the crenellated parapet, stood the beech whose 
twisted branches bore witness to the violent south-westerly 
breezes at this height. 

The shepherd Frik was not deceived ; the legend gave 
but three more years of life to the old castle of the Barons 
of Gortz. 

Franz in silence looked at the mass of buildings 
dominated by the stumpy donjon in the centre. There, 
without doubt, under that confused mass, were still hidden 
vaulted chambers long and sonorous, long daedalian corri¬ 
dors, and redoubts concealed in the ground such as the 
old Magyar fortresses still possess. No dwelling could 


i$6 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

have been more fit for the last descendant of the family of 
Gortz to b iry himself in oblivion, of which none knew the 
secret. And the more the young count thought, the more 
he clung to the idea that Rodolphe de Gortz had taken 
refuge in the isolation of his Castle of the Carpathians. 

But there was nothing to show that the donjon was 
inhabited. No smoke rose from its chimneys, no sound 
came from its closed windows. Nothing—not even the 
cry of a bird — troubled the silence of the gloomy 
dwelling. 

For some minutes Franz eagerly gazed at this ring of 
wall, which once was full of the tumult of festival and the 
clash of arms. But he said nothing, for his mind was 
laden with oppressive thoughts and his heart with remem¬ 
brances. 

Rotzko, who respected the young count’s mournful 
silence, took care to keep away from him, and did not 
interrupt him by a single remark. But when the sun 
went down behind the shoulder of the Plesa, and the 
valley of the two Syls began to be bathed in shadow, he 
did not hesitate to approach him. 

“ Master,” he said, “ the evening has come. It will soon 
be eight o’clock.” 

Franz did not appear to hear. 

“ It is time to start, ” said Rotzko, “ if we are to reach 
Livadzel before the inns close.” 

“ Rotzko—in a minute—yes—in a minute I will go with 
you,” said Franz. 

“ It will take us quite an hour, master, to return to the 


He would have rolled to the foot of the wall. 


Page 158. 











































































































The drawbridge was down. 


Page 165 










The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 157 

hill road, and as the night will then have fallen, we shall 
run no risk of being seen.” 

“ A few minutes more,” said Franz, “ and we will go 
down towards the village.” 

The count had not moved from the spot he had stopped 
at when he reached the plateau, 

“Do not forget, master,” continued Rotzko, “that in 
the dark it will be difficult to pass among those rocks. 
We could hardly do it in broad daylight. You must 
excuse me if I insist—” 

“Yes—we will go, Rotzko. I am with you.” 

And it seemed as though Franz was helplessly detained 
before the castle, perhaps by one of those secret presenti¬ 
ments which the heart cannot account for. Was he, then, 
chained to the ground like Doctor Patak said he had been 
in the ditch at the foot of the curtain ? No ; his feet were 
free from every fetter. He could move about on the 
plateau as he chose, and, if he wished, nothing could have 
prevented him from going round the walls, skirting the 
edge of the counterscarp. 

Perhaps he would do so ? 

So thought Rotzko, who said for the last time,—- 

“Are you coming, master?” 

“ Yes, yes ! ” replied Franz. 

And he remained motionless. 

The Orgall plateau was already in darkness. The 
shadow of the hills had spread over the buildings, whose 
outlines were all vague and misty. Soon nothing would be 
visible if no light shone from the windows of the donjon. 


158 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“Come, master, come ! ” said Rotzko. And Franz was 
about to fol’ow him, when on the platform of the bastion, 
where stood the legendary beech, there appeared an indis¬ 
tinct shape. 

Franz stopped, looking at the shape, whose outline 
gradually became clearer. 

It was a woman with her hair undone, her hands 
stretched out, enveloped in a long white robe. 

But this costume, was it not that which La Stilla wore 
in that final scene in “ Orlando ” in which Franz de Telek 
had seen her for the last time ? 

Yes ! And it was La Stilla ; motionless, with her arms 
stretched out towards the young count, her penetrating 
gaze fixed on him. 

“ She ! }> he cried. 

And rushing towards the ditch he would have rolled to 
the foot of the wall if Rotzko had not stopped him. 

But the apparition suddenly faded, and La Stilla was 
hardly visible for a minute. 

Little did it matter. A second would have sufficed for 
Franz to recognize her, and these words escaped him: 

“ She ! and alive ! ” 




CHAPTER XII. 


Was it possible? La Stilla, whom Franz cle Telek 
thought never to see again, had just appeared on the 
platform of the bastion ! He had not been the sport of 
an illusion, and Rotzko had seen her as he had done 1 It 
was indeed the great artiste in her costume of Angelica, 
such as she had worn in public at her last performance at 
San Carlo 

The terrible truth flashed across the young count. 
This adored woman, who was to have been the Countess 
of Telek, had been shut up for five years in this castle 
amid the Transylvanian mountains ! She whom Franz 
had seen fall dead on the stage had survived ! While he 
had been carried almost dying to the hotel, the Baron 
Rodolphe must have found her and carried her off to the 
Castle of the Carpathians; and it was an empty coffin 
that the whole population had followed to the Santo 
Campo Nuovo of Naples ! 

It all appeared incredible, inadmissible, contrary to 
probability ; and Franz said so to himself over and over 
again. Yes! But one thing was indubitable: La Stilla 
must have been carried off by the Baron de Gortz, for she 


160 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

was in the castle ! She was alive, for she had just appeared 
above the wall ! That was an absolute fact. 

The young count endeavoured to collect his thoughts, 
which were centred on one single object: to rescue from 
Rodolphe de Gortz La Stilla, who for five years had been 
a prisoner in the Castle of the Carpathians. 

“ Rotzko,” said Franz in a breathless voice, “ listen to 
me. Understand me at least; it seems as though my 
brain were going,— 

“ My master—my dear master ! ” 

“ At all costs I must enter this castle this very night/” 

“No; tomorrow.” 

“ This night, I tell you! She is there. She has seen 
me as I saw her. She is waiting for me—” 

“Well, I will follow you.” 

“No. I will go alone.” 

“ Alone ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“But how can you get into the castle when Nic Deck 
was not able to ? ” 

“ I will go in, I tell you.” 

“ The gate is shut.” 

“ It will not be so for me. I will seek for and I will find 
a breach. I will get through it.” 

“You do not wish me to accompany you, master? 
You do not wish it? ” 

“No ! We will separate ; and it is by leaving me that 
you will serve me.” 

“ Shall I wait for you here ? 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 161 

“ No, Rotzko.” 

“ Where shall I go, then ? ” 

“ To Werst—or rather—no—'not to Werst,” replied 
Franz. “There would be no use in those people knowing. 
Go down to Vulkan and stay the night there. If you do 
not see me, leave Vulkan in the morning—that is to say 
— no—wait a few hours. Then go to Karlsburg. There go 
to the chief of the police. Tell him all that has happened. 
Then return with his men. If necessary, storm the castle. 
Deliver her ! Ah ! She—alive—in the power of Rodolphe 
de Gortz ! ” 

And as the young count uttered these broken sentences 
Rotzko noticed that his excitement increased, and mani¬ 
fested itself in the disordered ideas of one who was no 
longer master of himself. 

“ Go, Rotzko ! ” he cried for the last time. 

“ You wish me to ? ” 

“I do.” 

At this formal injunction Rotzko could but obey ; par¬ 
ticularly as Franz had begun to leave him, and the dark¬ 
ness hid him from view. 

Rotzko remained a few moments where he was, unable 
to decide on going away. Then the idea occurred to him 
that the count’s efforts would be in vain ; that he would 
not be able to enter the castle, nor even to get through 
the outer wall ; that he would be compelled to return to 
the village of Vulkan—perhaps next morning, perhaps 
that night. The two of them would then go to Karlsburg, 
and what neither of them could do alone would be done 


M 


162 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

by the police. They would settle with this Baron de 
Gortz ; they would rescue the unfortunate La Stilla ; they 
would search this Castle of the Carpathians ; they would 
not leave one stone upon another, if necessary, even if all 
the fiends imaginable united to defend it. 

And Rotzko descended the slopes of the Orgall plateau, 
so as to return to the Vulkan road. 

Following the edge of the counterscarp, Franz had 
already gone round the bastion which flanked it on the 
left. 

A thousand thoughts crowded in his mind. There was 
now no doubt about the presence of the Baron de Gortz 
in the castle, for La Stilla was a prisoner therein. It 
could only be the baron. La Stilla alive! But how 
could Franz get to her ? How could he get her out of the 
castle? He did not know, but it must be done—and it 
would be done. The obstacles which Nic Deck could not 
overcome he would overcome. It was not curiosity which 
had brought him among these ruins, it was love for the 
woman he had found alive, yes, alive ! After believing her 
to be dead, he would rescue her from Rodolphe de Gortz! 

Doubtless Franz had said to himself that he could only 
obtain admission to the interior by means of the south 
curtain, in which the gate opened opposite the drawbridge ; 
and seeing that it was impossible for him to scale the high 
walls, he continued to skirt the crest of the Orgall plateau, 
as soon as he had turned the angle at the bastion. 

In broad daylight there would not have been much 
difficulty in this. At night—the moon was not yet up— 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 163 

a night all the darker from the mists which thicken on the 
mountains, it was more dangerous. To the danger of a 
false step, to the danger of a fall to the bottom of the ditch, 
was added that of stumbling against the rocks, and per¬ 
haps causing them to fall over him. 

Franz went on, however, keeping as near as possible to 
the zigzags of the counterscarp, feeling his way hand and 
foot, to make sure he was not going astray. Sustained by 
superhuman strength, he also felt himself guided by an 
extraordinary instinct that could not deceive him. 

Beyond the bastion stretched the south wall, that with 
which the drawbridge established communication when it 
was not raised against the gate. 

When the bastion was passed, obstacles appeared to 
multiply. Among the huge rocks which covered the 
plateau, to follow the counterscarp was impossible, and he 
had to leave it. Figure a man endeavouring to traverse a 
field of Carnac in which the dolmens and menhirs were on 
no plan whatever; and not a mark to guide him, not a 
ray of light in the dark night. 

Franz kept on, here climbing over a rock which barred 
his way, there creeping among the rocks, his hands torn 
with the thistles and brushwood, his head skimmed by the 
pairs of ospreys disturbed in their resting-places and flying 
off, uttering their horrible scream. 

Ah ! why did not the chapel bell clang as it had clanged 
for Nic Deck and the doctor ? Why did not the intense 
light which had enveloped them stream up from between 
the battlements of the donjon ? He would have headed 

M 2 


164 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

towards the sound, he would have made towards the. 
light, as the sailor towards the siren’s whistle or the light-' 
house rays. 

No! nothing but deep night bordered his view a few 
yards away. 

This lasted for nearly an hour. When the ground 
began to slope to the left, Franz felt he was going wrong. 
Perhaps he had gone lower than the gate ? Perhaps he 
was beyond the drawbridge ? 

He stopped, stamping his foot and wringing his hand. 
Which way should he go ? Ah ! how angry he was when 
he thought he would have to wait for the daylight! But 
then he would be seen by the people in the castle, he 
could not take them by surprise. Rodolphe de Gortz 
would be on his guard. 

It was in the night-time that he must get into the 
enclosure, and Franz could not fin-d his way in this 
darkness ! 

A cry escaped him—a cry of despair : 

“ Stilla ! ” he cried, “ my Stilla ! ” 

Did he think that the prisoner could hear him, that she 
could reply to him ? 

And yet a score of times he shouted the name, and the 
echoes of Plesa repeated it. 

Suddenly Franz’s eyes were on the alert. A ray of 
light pierced the darkness—a dazzling ray, and its source 
was at a considerable elevation. 

“There is the castle—there!” he said, and from its 
position the light could only come from the central 
donjon. 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 165 

In his mental excitement Franz did not hesitate to be¬ 
lieve that it was La Stilla who showed him this light. 
There could be no doubt she had recognized him at the 
moment he had perceived her through the battlements of 
the bastion. And now she it was who had given the 
signal and showed him the road to follow to reach the 
gate. 

Franz went towards the light, which increased with every 
step he took. As he had gone too far to the left on the 
plateau, he had to go back about twenty yards to the right, 
and after a few trials he regained the edge of the counter¬ 
scarp. 

' The light shone in his face, and its height showed that 
it came from one of the windows of the donjon. 

Franz was about to find himself faced by the last obsta¬ 
cles—insurmountable, perhaps. 

In fact, if the gate were shut, the drawbridge raised, he 
would have to go down to the foot of the wall, and what 
would he do then, where it was fifty feet high in front of him ? 

Franz went on towards the place where the drawbridge 
would rest if the gate were open. 

The drawbridge was down. 

Without even stopping to think, Franz rushed on to the 
bridge and laid his hand on the gate. 

The gate opened. 

Franz rushed under the dark arch. But before he had 
taken a dozen steps the drawbridge was raised with a 
clatter against the gate. 

Count Franz de Telek was a prisoner in the Castle of 
the Carpathians. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The country people and travellers who passed backwards 
or forwards over the Vulkan hill knew only the Castle of 
the Carpathians from its exterior aspect. At the respect¬ 
ful distance at which fear kept the bravest of Werst and 
its environs, it presented to the eye but an enormous mass 
of rocks which they might take to be ruins. 

But within the enclosure was the castle as dilapidated 
as they supposed ? No ; and within the shelter of its solid 
walls and buildings, the old feudal fortress could have 
accommodated quite a garrison. 

Vast vaulted halls, deep excavations, innumerable cor¬ 
ridors, courts of which the stonework was hidden beneath 
the lofty fence of herbage, subterranean redoubts to which 
the light of day never penetrated, narrow staircases con¬ 
trived in the thickness of the walls, casemates lighted by 
narrow loopholes in the external wall, a central donjon 
with three floors of apartments sufficiently habitable, 
crowned by a crenellated platform ; and among the other 
buildings of the enclosure, interminable corridors capri¬ 
ciously entangled, mounting to the platform of the bas¬ 
tions, diving to the depths of the lower structure, with a 
few cisterns in which the rain-water was caught, the over- 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 167 

flow feeding the torrent of the Nyad, and then long tunnels, 
not stopped up as was believed, but giving access to the 
Vulkan road—such was the state of the Castle of the 
Carpathians, the geometrical plan of which was as com¬ 
plicated as that of the labyrinths of Porsena, of Lemnos, or 
of Crete. 

As Theseus was led on by his love for the daughter of 
Minos, so was it the power of love, more intense and more 
irresistible, which had led the count within the intricacies 
of the castle. Would he find an Ariadne’s thread to 
guide him, as the Greek hero had done ? 

Franz had had but one thought—to get within the enclo¬ 
sure, and he had got there. But one thing might have 
struck him, and that was that the drawbridge, which had 
always been raised, seemed to have been expressly lowered 
to admit him. Perhaps he might have been uneasy when 
the gate shut suddenly behind him? But he gave no 
thought to these things. He was at last in the castle 
where Rodolphe de Gortz was keeping La Stilla, and he 
would sacrifice his life to reach her. 

The gallery into which Franz had advanced was wide, 
lofty, and with a vaulted roof, and it was quite dark, and 
its pavement was broken up, so that it had to be trodden 
carefully. 

Franz took to the left wall, and kept to it, feeling his 
way along the facing, the efflorescent surface of which 
rubbed off on his hands. He heard no sound except that 
of his steps, which echoed in the distance. A draught of 
warm air with an ancient, frowsy smell swept gently past 


168 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

him, as if there were an opening at the other end of the 
gallery 

After passing a stone pillar which served as a buttress 
in the last angle to the left, Franz found himself in a much 
narrower corridor. He had only to open his arms to touch 
the walls. 

He went on in this way, his body bent forward, feeling 
with hands and feet, and endeavouring to discover if the 
passage were a straight one. 

Two hundred yards after passing the buttress Franz 
felt the wall curving off to the left, to take the exactly 
opposite direction fifty paces farther on. Did it return to 
the outer wall, or did it lead to the foot of the donjon ? 

Franz endeavoured to quicken his advance, but every 
moment he was hindered by a rise in the ground, against 
which he stumbled, or by some sharp angle which changed 
his direction. From time to time he would reach some 
opening in the wall leading off to lateral ramifications. 
But all was dark, unfathomable, and it was in vain he 
sought to make out where he was in this maze in a 
molehill. 

He had to retrace his steps several times on ascertaining 
that he had gone where there was no thoroughfare. One 
thing he had to fear was that some badly-fastened trap¬ 
door would give way under his feet and drop him into some 
underground cell from which he could not escape. And 
so whenever he touched a piece that sounded hollow he 
took care to cling to the walls, though he went forward 
with an ardour that hardly left him time for reflection. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 169 

At the same time, as he had neither gone upwards nor 
downwards, the floor was clearly on the level of the inner 
courts arranged among the different buildings within the 
enclosure, and it was possible that the passages ended 
in the central donjon, perhaps at the foot of the stair¬ 
case. 

Certainly there ought to exist a more direct means of 
communication between the gate and the central build¬ 
ings. When the Gortz family had lived there it had not 
been necessary to enter these interminable passages. A 
second gate, which faced the gate opposite the first gallery, 
opened on to the place of arms, in the centre of which rose 
the keep ; but it had been stopped up, and Franz had not 
been able to see where it had been. 

For an hour the young count continued his advance at 
a venture, listening if he could hear any distant sound, and 
not daring to shout for La Stilla lest the echoes should 
carry it to the upper floors of the donjon. He was in no 
way discouraged, and would go on until strength failed 
him, or some impassable obstacle compelled him to 
stop. 

But although he took no notice of it, Franz was already 
nearly exhausted. Since he left Werst he had eaten 
nothing. He suffered from hunger and thirst. His step 
was not sure, his legs were failing him. In this warm, 
humid air his respiration had become irregular, and his 
heart beat violently. 

It was nearly nine o’clock when Franz, putting out his 
left foot, found no ground to tread upon. 


170 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

He stooped down and felt there was a step, and then 
another below it. 

It was a staircase. 

Did these stairs go down to the foundations of the 
castle, with no way of exit ? 

Franz did not hesitate to go down them, and he counted 
the steps, which went off obliquely from the passage. 

Seventy-seven steps were thus descended to the level 
of a second passage which led to many gloomy wind¬ 
ings. 

Franz went along these for half an hour, and, tired out, 
had just stopped when a luminous point appeared several 
hundred feet in advance. 

Whence came this light ? Was it merely a natural 
phenomenon, the hydrogen of some will-o’-the-wisp that 
had lighted itself at this depth ? Was it a lantern carried 
by one of the inhabitants of the castle ? 

“Can it be La Stilla?” murmured Franz. And the 
thought occurred to him that a light had already appeared 
as if to show him the way into the castle when he was 
wandering among the rocks on the Orgall plateau. If it 
had been La Stilla who had shown this light at one of the 
windows of the donjon, was it not La Stilla who was now 
trying to guide him amid the sinuosities of these sub¬ 
terranean passages ? 

Hardly master of himself, Franz bent down and looked 
ahead without moving. It was more a diffused effulgence 
than a luminous point that seemed to fill a sort of vault at 
the end of the passage. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 17i 

Franz crawled towards it, for his limbs could scarcely 
support him, and passing through a narrow entrance he 
fell on the threshold of a crypt. 

This crypt was in a good state of preservation, about 
twelve feet high, and circular in shape. The arches of 
the vault sprang from the capitals of eight dwarf 
columns, and met in a hanging boss, in the centre of 
which was a glass vase filled with a yellowish light. 

Facing the entrance, between two of the columns, was 
another door which was closed, and the large rounded 
bolts showed where the outer ironwork of the hinges was 
fastened. 

Franz dragged himself up to this second door and tried 
to move it. 

His efforts were in vain. 

Some old furniture was in the crypt; there was a bed, 
or rather a bench, in old heart-of-oak, on which were a few 
bedclothes ; there was a stool with twisted feet; there was 
a table fixed to the wall with iron tenons. On the table 
were a large jug full of water, a dish with a piece of cold 
venison, a thick piece of bread like a sea-biscuit. In a 
corner murmured a fountain fed by a narrow stream, the 
overflow of which passed away at the base of one of the 
columns. 

Did not these arrangements show that some guest was 
expected in this crypt, or rather a prisoner in this prison ? 
Was this prisoner Franz ? and had he been lured by a 
stratagem into the interior of the castle ? 

In the trouble of his thoughts Franz had no suspicion 


r/2 


The Castle of tfie Carpathians 


of this. Exhausted by want and fatigue, he dashed at the 
food on the table, quenched his thirst with the contents of 
the jug, and then fell on the rough bed, where a sleep of a 
few minutes might recruit his strength. 

But when he tried to collect his thoughts it seemed as 
though they escaped like the water he might try to hold 
in his hand. 

Would he then have to wait for daylight to recommence 
his search ? Had his will so far forsaken him that he was 
no longer master of his acts ? 

“No,” said he, “I will not wait! To the donjon ! I 
must reach the donjon to-night.” 

Suddenly the light in the vase went out, and the crypt 
was plunged in complete darkness. 

Franz would have risen. He could not do so, and his 
choughts went to sleep, or rather stopped suddenly, like 
the hand of a clock when the spring breaks. It was a 
strange sleep, or rather an overpowering torpor, an abso¬ 
lute annihilation of being, which did not proceed from the 
soothing of the mind. 

How long the sleep lasted Franz did not know. His 
watch had run down and did not show the time. But the 
crypt was again bathed in artificial light. 

Franz jumped off the bed, and stepped towards the 
first door, which was open all the time, then towards the 
second, which was still closed. 

He began to reflect, and found he could not do so 
without difficulty. 

If his body had recovered from the fatigues of the night 
before, he felt his head empty and heavy. 



Franz did not move. 


Page 174 









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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Page 179 














































































The Castle of the Carpathians. 173 

“ How long have I slept ? ” he asked. “ Is it night or is 
it day ? ” 

Within the crypt nothing had changed, except that the 
light had been renewed, the food replaced, and the jug 
filled with clear water. 

Some one, then, must have been there while Franz was 
deep in this overpowering slumber ? It was known that 
he was in the depths of the castle ! He was in the power 
of Baron Rodolphe de Gortz ! Was he doomed to have 
no further communication with his fellow-men ? 

That was not possible, and, besides, he would escape, 
for he could do so ; he would re-traverse the gallery that 
led to the gate, he would leave the castle. 

Leave ? He then remembered that the gale was closed 
behind him. 

Well! He would try to reach the outer wall, and by 
one of the embrasures he would try to slip down into the 
ditch. Cost what it might, in an hour he would have 
escaped from the castle. 

But La Stilla ? Would he give up reaching her ? 
Would he go away without rescuing her from Rodolphe 
de Gortz ? 

Yes! And what he could not do single-handed he 
would do with the help of the police, which Rotzko would 
bring from Karlsburg to the village of Werst. They 
would rush to the assault of the old stronghold, they 
would search the castle from top to bottom. 

Having come to this determination, he decided to put it 
into execution without losing an instant. 

Franz rose, and was walking towards the passage by 


i/4 Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 

which he had come ; when he heard a noise behind the 
other door. 

It was certainly the sound of footsteps approaching 
very slowly. 

Franz put his ear against the door and, holding his 
breath, he listened intently. 

The steps seemed to come at regular intervals, as if 
they were going upstairs. No doubt there was a .second 
staircase which connected the crypt with the interior 
courts. 

In readiness for whatever might happen, Franz drew 
from the sheath his hunting-knife, which he wore at his 
belt, and gripped it firmly. 

If it were to be one of the Baron de Gortz’s servants 
who entered, he would throw himself on him, take away 
the keys, and make it impossible for him to follow him. 
And then Franz would rush along this new road and try 
to reach the donjon. 

If it were the Baron de Gortz—and he would recognize 
him, although he had only seen him once, at the moment 
La Stilla fell on the stage of San Carlo—he would attack 
him without mercy. 

However, the footsteps stopped on the landing which 
formed the outer threshold. 

Franz did not move, but waited until the door was 
opened. 

It did not open, but a voice of infinite sweetness was 
heard by the young count. 

It was the voice of La Stilla—yes!—her voice a little 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 175 

weakened, her voice which had lost nothing of its in¬ 
flections, of its inexpressible charm, of its caressing modu¬ 
lations, that admirable instrument of its marvellous art, 
which seemed to have died with the artiste. 

And La Stilla repeated the plaintive melody which 
he had heard in his dream when he slept in the saloon of 
the inn at Werst:— 

“ Nel giardino de’ mille fiori 
Andiamo, mio cuore. . . 7 

The song entered into Franz to the depths of his soul. 
He breathed it, he drank it like a divine liquor, while La 
Stilla seemed to invite him to follow her, repeating,— 

“Andiamo, mio cuore . . . andiamo.'’ 

But why did not the door open to let him through ? 
Could he not reach her, clasp her in his arms, take her 
with him out of the castle ? 

“ Stilla—my Stilla ! ” he shouted, and he threw himself 
against the door, which stood firm against his efforts. 

Already the song seemed to grow fainter, the footsteps 
were heard going away. 

Franz knelt down, trying to shake the planks, tearing 
his hands with the ironwork, calling all the time to La 
Stilla, whose voice had died away in the distance. 

It was then that a terrible thought flashed through his 
mind. 

“ Mad ! ” he exclaimed. “ She is mad, for she did not 
recognize me and did not reply to me. For five years 


176 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

she has been shut up in this castle, in the power of this 
man—my poor Stilla—her reason has left her ! ” 

Then he rose, his eyes haggard, his head as if on fire. 

‘‘I also —I feel that I am going mad ! ” he repeated; 
“ I am going mad—mad like her ! ” 

He strode backwards and forwards across the crypt like 
a wild beast in its cage. 

“No!” he repeated. “No! I must not go mad. I 
must get out of this castle. I will go ! ” 

And he went towards the first door. It had just shut 
silently. 

Franz had not noticed it while he was listening to the 
voice of La Stilla. 

He had been imprisoned within the enclosure, and now 
he was a prisoner within the crypt. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


FRANZ was thoroughly astounded. As he had feared, 
the faculty of thinking, of comprehending matters, the 
intelligence necessary for him to reason on them, was 
gradually leaving him. The only feeling that remained 
was the remembrance of La Stilla, the impression of the 
song he had just heard, and which the echoes of this 
gloomy crypt no longer repeated. 

Had he been the sport of an illusion ? No, a thousand 
times no! It was indeed La Stilla he had just heard, it 
was indeed her he had seen on the castle bastion. 

Then the thought returned to him, the thought that she 
was deprived of reason, and this horrible blow struck him 
as if he were about to go out of his mind a second time. 

“ Mad ! ” he repeated. “ Yes ! Mad—for she did not 
recognize my voice—mad—mad ! ” 

And that seemed to be only too likely. Ah ! if he could 
only rescue her from this place, take her to his Castle of 
Krajowa, devote himself entirely to her, his care and love 
would soon restore her to sanity. 

So said Franz, a prey to a terrible delirium, and many 
hours went by before he was himself again. 

HP 


178 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Then he tried tc reason coolly, to collect himself amid 
the chaos of his thoughts. 

“ I must get away from here,” he said. u How ? As soon 
as they reopen that door! Yes ! During my sleep they 
come and renew this food. I will wait—I will pretend to 
sleep.” 

A suspicion occurred to him. The water in the jug 
must contain some soporific substance. If he had been 
plunged in this heavy sleep, in this complete unconscious¬ 
ness, the duration of which he did not know, it was 
because he had drunk this water. Well, he would drink 
no more of it. He would not even touch the food on the 
table. Somebody would come soon and then— 

Then! What did he know of it ? At this moment 
was the sun mounting towards the zenith or sinking on 
the horizon ? Was it day or night ? 

Then Franz listened for the sound of footsteps at either 
door. But no sound reached him. He crept along the 
walls of the crypt, his head burning, his eyes glaring, his 
ears throbbing, his breath panting amid this heavy atmo¬ 
sphere, which was only just renewed through the chink 
around the doors. 

Suddenly near the angle of one of the columns on the 
right he felt a fresher breath than usual reach his lips. 

Was there an opening here through which air came in 
from the outside ? 

Yes; there was a passage he had not noticed in the 
shade of the column. 

To glide between the wails, to make for an indistinct 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 179 

clearness which seemed to come from above, was what 
Franz did in an instant. 

There was a small court five or six yards across, with 
the walls a hundred feet high. It seemed to be a well 
which served as an outer court for this subterranean cell, 
and gave it a little air and light. 

Franz could see it was still day. At the top of the well 
was a small angle of light which just shone on the upper 
margin. 

The sun had accomplished at least half its diurnal 
course, for this luminous angle was slowly decreasing. 

It must be about five o’clock in the afternoon. 

Consequently Franz must have slept for at least forty 
hours, and he had no doubt this must have been due to a 
soporific draught. As he and Rotzko had left VVerst on 
the nth of June, this must be the 13th which was about 
to finish in a few hours. 

So humid was the air at the bottom of this court, that 
Franz breathed it deeply and felt all the better for it. 
But if he held hoped that an escape was possible up this 
long stone tube he was soon undeceived. To try and 
climb that smooth, lofty wall, was impracticable. 

Franz returned to the interior of the crypt. As he 
could only get out through one of the doorways, he came 
to see what state they were in. 

The first door—that by which he had come—was very 
solid and very thick, and was kept in its place on the 
other side by bolts working into iron staples ; it was, 
therefore, useless to try and force it. 

N 2 


i8o Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 

The second door—behind which he had heard La 
Stilla’s voice—did not seem to be so well preserved. The 
boards were rotten in places, and it might be possible to 
clear a way through them. 

“ Yes—this is the way ! ” said Franz, who had recovered 
his coolness ; “ this is the way ! ” 

But he had no time to lose, as it was probable some 
one would enter the crypt as soon as he was supposed to 
be asleep under the influence of the soporific draught. 

The work went on more quickly than he had expected. 
The moisture had eaten into the wood around the metal 
clasp which held the bolts against the embrasure. With 
his knife Franz managed to get the round part off, work¬ 
ing noiselessly, and stopping now and then to listen and 
make sure that nothing was moving on the other side. 

Three hours afterwards the bolts were free and the 
door opened with a scroop on its hinges. 

Franz then returned to the little court so as to breathe a 
less stifling air. 

At this moment the sun no longer shone across the 
opening of the well, and consequently must have sunk 
behind Retyezat. The court was in complete darkness. 
A few stars gleamed above, as if they were seen through 
the tube of a long telescope. A few small clouds drifted 
along in the intermittent breath of the night breeze. A 
peculiar haze in the atmosphere showed that the moon 
must have risen above the eastern mountains. It was 
evidently about nine o’clock at night. 

Franz went back to the crypt, where he ate some of the 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 181 

food and quenched his thirst from the spring, after throw¬ 
ing away the liquid in the jug. Then, with his knife at 
his belt, he went out by the door, which he shut behind him. 

And now would he meet the unfortunate La Stilla 
wandering in these subterranean galleries ? At the thought 
his heart beat almost ready to burst. 

As soon as he had made a few steps he stumbled. As 
he had thought, there was a flight of stairs, of which he 
counted the steps ; sixty only instead of the seventy-seven 
he had come down to the threshold of the crypt. Con¬ 
sequently he was about eight feet below the level of the 
ground. 

Having nothing better to do than to follow the dark 
corridor, the sides of which he could touch with his out¬ 
stretched hands, he hurried on in that direction. 

And he went on for half an hour without being stopped 
by door or railing. But the large number of turns had 
prevented him from knowing in what direction he was 
going with regard to the wall which faced the Orgall 
plateau. 

After halting a few minutes to get his breath, Franz 
continued his advance, and it seemed as though the 
corridor were to be interminable, when an obstacle stopped 
him. 

This was a wall of bricks. 

Tapping it at different heights, he could find no sign of 
an opening. 

This was the only way out from the corridor. 

Franz could not help exclaiming. All his hopes were 


182 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


shattered against this obstacle. His knees bent, his legs 
gave way, and he fell at the foot of the wall. 

But just on the ground the wall had a narrow crack in 
it, and the bricks, being rather loose, shook as he touched 
them. 

“That is the way!” said Franz. “Yes! that is the 
way! ” 

And he began to pull out the bricks one by one, when 
there was a noise of something metallic on the other side. 

Franz stopped. 

The noise had not ceased, and at the same time a ray ol 
light swept across the hole. 

Franz looked through. 

It was the old chapel that he saw. To what a lament¬ 
able state of dilapidation time and neglect had reduced 
it!—the roof half fallen in, a few only of the ribs perfect on 
their swelling columns, two or three pointed arches threaten¬ 
ing to fall, a window-frame with flamboyant mullions 
thrust out of place ; here and there a dusty tomb beneath 
which slept some ancestor of the family of Gortz, and at 
the end a fragment of an altar with the reredos still show¬ 
ing traces of sculpture ; then the remains of the roof still 
over the apse which had been spared by the storms, and 
then over the ridge above the entrance the shaking belfry 
from which hung a rope to the ground—the rope of the 
bell which occasionally rang to the terror of the people of 
Werst. 

Into this chapel, deserted for so long, open to all the 
rigours of the Carpathian climate, a man had just entered, 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 183 

holding in his hand a lantern, the brilliant light ol which 
shone full on his face. 

Franz instantly recognized him. It was Orfanik, that 
eccentric individual whom the baron had made his only 
companion during his sojourn in the large Italian towns, 
that oddity he had seen along the streets gesticulating and 
talking to himself, that incomprehensible scientist, that 
inventor ever in search of some chimera, and who doubt¬ 
less put all his inventions at the service of Rodolphe de 
Gortz. 

If Franz had retained any doubt as to the presence of 
the baron at the Castle of the Carpathians, even after the 
apparition of La Stilla, this doubt was changed to certainty 
when he saw Orfanik. 

What was he going to do in this ruined chapel at this 
advanced hour of the night ? 

Franz tried to discover, and this is what he saw. 

Orfanik, stooping over the ground, was lifting up a few 
iron cylinders to which he was attaching a line, which he 
unrolled from a reel placed in one of the corners of the 
chapel. And such was the attention he gave to his work, 
that he would not even have seen the young count if he 
had been able to get near him. 

Ah! why was not the hole Franz had begun to enlarge 
sufficient to let him pass? He would have entered the 
chapel, he would have hurled himself on Orfanik, he would 
have compelled him to lead him to the donjon. 

But perhaps it was as well that he could not do so, for if 
the attempt failed, the Baron de Gortz would have doubt- 


184 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

less made him pay with his life for the secrets he had 
discovered. 

A few minutes after the arrival of Orfanik another man 
entered the chapel. 

It was Baron Rodolphe de Gortz. The never-to-be- 
forgotten physiognomy of this personage had not changed. 
He did not even seem to have aged, with his pale, long face, 
which the lantern illuminated from top to bottom, his long 
grey hair tnrown back behind his ears, and his look 
glittering from the depths of his black orbits. 

Rodolphe de Gortz went near to examine the work on 
which Orfanik was engaged. 

And this was the conversation exchanged between the 
men in short, sharp tones. 


CHAPTER XV. 


“Is the connection with the chapel finished, Orfanik ? ” 

“ I have just done it.” 

“ Everything is ready in the casemates of the bastions ? ” 

“ Everything.-” 

“ The bastions and chapel are in direct connection with 
the donjon ? ” 

“ They are/' 

“ And after the instrument has made the current, we 
shall have time to get away ? ” 

“We shall.” 

“ Have you made sure that the tunnel on to the Vulkan 
is clear ? ” 

“It is.” 

They were silent for a few minutes while Orfanik took 
up his lantern and directed its light into the corners of the 
chapel. 

“ Ah ! my old castle ! ” exclaimed the baron. “ You will 
cost them dear who would storm your walls.” 

And Rodolphe de Gortz pronounced these words in a 
tone which made the count shudder. 

“You have heard what they say at Werst ?” the baron 
asked Orfanik. 


186 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

“ Fifty minutes ago I heard on the wire what they were 
talking about at the ‘ King Mathias.’ ” 

“ Is the attack to be to-night ?” 

“ No, not until daybreak.” 

“When did this Rotzko return to Werst ? ” 

“Two hours ago, with the police he brought from Karls- 
burg.” 

“ Well! as the castle cannot defend itself,” said the 
baron, (( at least it can crush under its ruins this Franz de 
Telek and all his people with him.” 

Then, after a few moments he continued,— 

“And this wire, Orfanik ? Will they ever know that it 
put the castle in communication with the village of 
Werst ? ” 

“ I will destroy it, and they will know nothing about it.” 

‘ And now the hour would seem to have come to explain 
certain phenomena which have occurred in the course of 
our story, the origin of which ought no longer to be con¬ 
cealed. 

At this period—it must be remembered that these events 
happened in one of the closing years of the nineteenth 
century—the use of electricity, which lias justly been called 
the soul of the universe, had been brought to its highest 
perfection. The illustrious Edison and his disciples had 
finished their work. 

Among other electrical instruments, the telephone then 
worked with such wonderful precision that the sounds col¬ 
lected by the diaphragms could be freely heard without the 
aid of ear-trumpets. What was said, what was sung, what 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 187 

was even whispered, could be heard at any distance, and 
two persons separated by thousands of leagues could con¬ 
verse as easily as if they were side by side. 

For some years Orfanik, the baron’s inseparable com¬ 
panion, had been in all that concerns the practical applica¬ 
tion of electricity an inventor of the first order. But, as 
we know, his admirable discoveries had not been welcomed 
as they deserved. The learned world had taken him for 
a madman, whereas he was a man of genius; and hence 
the inappeasable hatred which the despised inventor bore 
to his fellow-men. 

It was under these circumstances that Baron de Gortz 
had met Orfanik, who was then in the depths of misery. 
He encouraged him in his work, he helped him with 
money, and finally he engaged him to be his companion 
on condition that he alone should profit by his inven¬ 
tions. 

In fact, these two eccentric personages were made to 
understand one another, and since their meeting they had 
never separated, not even when the Baron de Gortz was 
following La Stilla from town to town in Italy. 

While the melomaniac was intoxicating himself with the 
singing of the incomparable artiste, Orfanik was busy in 
completing the discoveries made by electricians during 
these later years, perfecting their adaptations and obtaining 
the most extraordinary results from them. 

After the events which terminated the dramatic career 
of La Stilla, the baron had disappeared without any one 
knowing what had become of him. When he left Naples 


88 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


;t was in the Castle of the Carpathians that he had taken 
refuge, accompanied by Orfanik, who had no hesitation in 
shutting himself up with him. 

When he resolved to bury his existence in this old 
castle, the baron’s intention was that no inhabitant of the 
district should suspect his return, and no one try to visit 
him. We need not say that Orfanik and he had the means 
of providing liberally for their daily wants ; in fact, a secret 
communication existed with the road over the Vulkan, and 
by this road an old servant of the baron’s, whom nobody 
knew, brought in all that was necessary for the existence of 
Baron Rodolphe and his companion. 

In reality what remained of the castle—and particularly 
the central donjon—was less dilapidated than was believed, 
and even more habitable than its inmates required. 
Orfanik, provided with all he wanted for his experiments, 
busied himself with immense researches in physics and 
chemistry, and of these he proposed to avail himself in his 
attempt to keep off unwelcome visitors. 

The Baron de Gortz received the propositions with 
eagerness, and Orfanik built special machinery for spread¬ 
ing terror in the country by producing phenomena which 
could only be ascribed to diabolic agencies. 

But in the first place it was necessary for the Baron de 
Gortz to be kept informed of what was passing in the 
nearest village. Was there any means of hearing what its 
people were talking about without their suspecting any¬ 
thing? Yes, if a telephone communication could be 
established between the castle and the large saloon of the 



“ Is the attack to be to-night? 


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The Castle of the Carpathians. 189 

“King Mathias,” where the notables of Wcrst were accus¬ 
tomed to meet every evening. 

Orfanik managed this very skilfully and very secretly, 
and in the most simple manner. A copper wire covered 
with an insulating sheath had one end fastened on the 
first floor of the donjon and was then laid under the 
waters of the Nyad up to the village of Werst. This part 
of the work being accomplished, Orfanik, going himself out 
as a tourist, came to spend a night at the “ King Mathias,'' 
and there connect the wire with the inn saloon. It was easy 
for him to bring up the end from the bed of the torrent to 
the height of the back window, which was never opened. 
He then fixed a telephonic instrument, which was hidden 
by the thick foliage, and with that connected the cable 
As the instrument was ingeniously adapted to emit di 
well as to receive sound, Baron de Gortz could hear all 
that was said at the “ King Mathias,” and make himself 
heard whenever he chose. 

During the first years the tranquillity of the castle was 
not troubled. The evil reputation it enjoyed was enough 
to keep the people of Werst away from it. But one day, 
that on which our story began, the purchase of the tele¬ 
scope led to the smoke being noticed escaping from the 
donjon chimney. From that moment interest was re¬ 
awakened, and we know what happened. 

It was then that the telephonic communication proved 
useful, for the baron and Orfanik could keep themselves 
posted up in what was passing in the village. It was by 
the wire that they knew that Nic Deck had undertaken to 


190 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

visit the castle, and by the wire the threatening voice 
entered the room to endeavour to keep him away. When 
the young forester persisted in his determination in spite 
of the menace, the baron resolved to give him such a 
lesson that he would have no desire to try it again. That 
night, Orfanik's machinery, which was always in working 
order, produced a series of purely physical phenomena 
intended to carry terror throughout the district; the bell 
was rung in the old chapel, intense flames were shot forth 
mingled with sea-salt, giving a spectral appearance to 
everything; powerful sirens were worked from which 
the compressed air escaped in terrible groans ; diagram 
outlines of monsters were projected on to the clouds by 
means of huge reflectors; iron plates were laid about the 
ditch in communication with electric batteries, and one of 
these plates caught the doctor by his iron-shod boots, while 
another had given the forester a shock at the moment he 
laid his hand on the drawbridge. 

And so the baron thought that after the apparition of these 
prodigies, after the attempt of Nic Deck which had ended 
so badly, terror would reach its height in the district, 
and that neither for gold nor silver would any one approach 
even within two good miles of this Castle of the Carpa¬ 
thians, evidently haunted by supernatural beings. 

Rodolphe de Gortz thought himself safe from all unwel¬ 
come curiosity when Franz de Telek arrived in the village 
of Werst. 

All that passed between him and Jonas and Master 
Koltz and the others was immediately known to him 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 191 

along the wire in the Nyad. The baron’s hatred of the 
young count was rekindled by the memory of the events 
which had occurred at Naples. And not only was Franz 
de Telek in the village, a few miles from the castle, but 
there before the notables he was deriding their absurd 
superstitions, and demolishing that fantastic reputation 
which protected the Castle of the Carpathians ; and he 
was even undertaking to warn the Karlsburg authorities, 
so that the police might come and scatter the legends to 
the winds! 

And so the Baron de Gortz resolved to allure Franz de 
Telek to the castle, and we know by what means he had 
succeeded. The voice of La Stilla, sent into the inn 
saloon by means of the telephone, had led the young 
Count to turn aside from his road to visit the castle ; the 
apparition of the singer on the platform of the bastion 
had given him an irresistible desire to enter ; a light shown 
at one of the windows of the donjon had guided him to the 
gate, which was opened to let him in. In this crypt, 
lighted electrically, in which he had again heard that won¬ 
derful voice, and where food was brought him while he was 
in a lethargic sleep; in that crypt in the depths of the 
castle, the door of which was closed on him, Franz de 
Telek was in the power of the Baron de Gortz, and the 
Baron de Gortz intended he should never get out of it. 

Such were the results obtained by this mysterious 
collaboration between Rodolphe de Gortz and his accom¬ 
plice Orfanik. But to his extreme disgust, the baron 
knew that the alarm had been given by Rotzko, who, not 


192 Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 

having followed his master into the castle, had warned the 
authorities at Karlsburg. A detachment of police had 
arrived at the village of Werst, and the Baron de Gortz 
would have a strong force to contend with. How could 
he and Orfanik defend themselves against a numerous 
party? The means employed against Nic Deck and 
Doctor Patak would not be enough, for the police do not 
believe in diabolic intervention. And so they had re¬ 
solved to destroy the castle completely, and were only 
waiting for the moment to act. An electric current had 
been prepared for firing the charges of dynamite which 
had been buried in the donjon, the bastions, and the 
old chapel, and the arrangement would allow of the 
baron and his accomplice having time to escape by the 
tunnel on to the Vulkan road. After the explosion, of which 
the count and a number of those who had scaled the 
castle wall would be the victims, the two would get so far 
aw ay that no trace of them would be discoverable. 

What he had just heard had given Franz the explana¬ 
tion of many things that had happened. He now knew 
that telephonic communication existed between the Castle 
of the Carpathians and the village of Werst. He also 
knew that the castle was about to be destroyed in an 
explosion which would cost him his life and be fatal to 
the police brought by Rotzko. He knew that the Baron 
de Gortz and Orfanik would have time to get away, 
dragging with them the unconscious La Sti 11a. 

Ah! why could not Franz rush into the chapel and 
throw himself on these men ? He would have knocked 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 193 

them down, he would have stopped their injuring any one, 
he would have prevented the catastrophe. 

But what was impossible at the moment might not be 
so after the baron’s departure. When the two had left 
the chapel Franz would throw himself on their track, 
pursue them to the castle, and with God’s help would settle 
with them. 

The baron and Orfanik were already in the apse. 
Franz had not lost sight of them. Which way were they 
going out ? Was there a door opening on to the enclosure ? 
or was there some corridor connecting the chapel with the 
donjon ? for it seemed as though all the castle buildings 
were in communication with each other. It mattered 
little if the count did not meet with an obstacle he could 
not surmount. 

At this moment a few words were interchanged between 
Baron de Gortz and Orfanik :— 

“ There is nothing more to do here? ” 

“ Nothing.” 

u Then we can leave each other.” 

“ You still intend that I should leave you alone in the 
castle ? ” 

“ Yes, Orfanik ; and you get off at once by the tunnel 
on to the Vulkan road.” 

“ But you ? ” 

“ I shall not leave the castle until the last moment.” 

“ it is understood that I am to wait for you at 
Bistritz ? ” 

“ At Bistritz.” 


O 


194 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


“ Remain here, Baron Rodolphe, and remain alone, if 
that is your wish.” 

“Yes—for I wish to hear her—to hear her once again 
during this last night I shall pass in the Castle of the 
Carpathians.” 

A few moments afterwards the Baron de Gortz and 
Orfanik had left the chapel. 

Although La Stilla's name had not been mentioned in 
this conversation, Franz understood ; it was of her that 
Rodolphe de Gortz had just spoken. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


The catastrophe was imminent. Franz could only prevent 
it by rendering the baron incapable of executing his 
plan. 

It was then eleven o’clock at night. With no further 
fear of being discovered, Franz resumed his work. The 
bricks were easily taken out of the wall, but its thickness 
was such that half an hour elapsed before the opening 
was large enough to admit him through. 

As soon as he set foot in this chapel, open to all the 
winds that blew, he felt himself refreshed by the night air. 
Through the gaps in the roof and window-frames the sky 
could be seen, with the light clouds driving before the 
breeze. Here and there were a few stars, which were 
growing pale in the light of the moon now rising on the 
horizon, 

Franz’s object was to find the door which opened at the 
end of the chapel, by which the Baron de Gortz and 
Orfanik had gone out; and, crossing the nave obliquely, 
he advanced towards the apse. 

This was in the darkness where none of the moonlight 
penetrated, and his foot stumbled against the ruins of the 
tombs and the fragments fallen from the roof. 

At last, at the very end of the apse, behind the reredos, 
O 2 


196 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

in a dark corner Franz felt a mouldy door yield before his 
hand. 

This door opened on a gallery which apparently traversed 
the outer wall. 

By it the baron and Orfanik had entered the chapel, and 
by it they had just departed. 

As soon as Franz was in the gallery, he again found 
himself in complete darkness. After winding about a 
good deal without either a rise or a fall, he was certain 
that he was now on a level with the interior courts. 

Half an hour later the darkness did not seem to be so 
deep ; a kind of half-light glided through several lateral 
openings in the gallery. 

Franz was able to walk faster, and reached a large case¬ 
mate contrived under the platform of the bastion which 
flanked the left angle of the outer wall. 

This casemate was pierced with narrow loopholes, 
through which streamed the rays of the moon. 

In the opposite wall was an open door. 

Franz’s first care was to place himself at one of the 
loopholes so as to breathe the fresh night breeze for a few 
seconds. 

But just as he was moving away he thought he saw two 
01 three shadowy shapes moving at the lower end of the 
Orgall plateau, which was now full in the moonlight up to 
the sombre masses of the pine forest. 

Franz looked again. 

A few men were moving about on the plateau just in 
front of the trees—doubtless the Karlsburg police brought 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 197 

by Rotzko. Had they, then, decided to attack that night 
in the hope of surprising the occupants of the castle, or 
were they waiting for daybreak ? 

It required considerable effort on Franz’s part not to 
shout and call Rotzko, who would have heard and recog¬ 
nized his voice. But the shout might reach the donjon, 
and before the police had scaled the wall Rodolphe de 
Gortz would have had time to put his device in action and 
escape by way of the tunnel. 

Franz succeeded in restraining himself and moved away 
from the loophole. Crossing the casemate, he went out 
at the other door and continued along the gallery. 

Five hundred yards farther on he arrived at the foot of 
a staircase which rose in the thickness of the walls. 

Had he, then, at last arrived at the donjon, in the centre 
of the place of arms ? It seemed so. 

But this staircase might not be the principal one giving 
access to the different floors. It was composed of a series 
of circular steps, arranged like the thread of a screw, within 
a dark, narrow cage. 

Franz went up quietly, listening but hearing nothing, 
and after twenty steps reached a landing. 

There a door opened on to the terrace which surrounded 
the donjon at the height of the first floor. 

Franz glided along this terrace, and, taking care to keep 
in shelter behind the parapet, looked out over the Orgall 
plateau. 

Several men were still on the edge of the fir-wood, and 
there was no sign of their coming nearer the castle. 


193 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Resolved to meet the baron before he fled through the 
tunnel, Franz went round the terrace, and reached another 
door where the staircase resumed its upward course. 

He put his foot on the first step, rested both his hands 
against the wall, and began to ascend. 

All was silent. 

The room on the first floor was not inhabited. 

Franz hurried on up to the landings which gave access 
to the higher floors. 

When he reached the third landing his foot found no 
further steps. There the staircase ended at the highest 
floor of the donjon, that which was crowned by the crenel¬ 
lated parapet from which formerly floated the standard of 
the Barons of Gortz. 

In the wall to the left of the landing there was a door 
which was shut. 

Through the keyhole filtered a ray of light. 

Franz listened and heard no sound inside the apart¬ 
ment. 

Looking through the keyhole he could see only the left 
side of the room, which was in a bright light, the rest being 
in darkness. 

Franz gently opened the door. 

A spacious apartment occupied the whole of this upper 
floor. On its circular walls rested a panelled roof, the ribs 
of which met in a heavy boss in the centre. Thick tapestry 
with figure subjects covered the walls. Some old furniture, 
cupboards, sideboards, armchairs, and stools, were scat¬ 
tered about in artistic disorder. At the windows hung 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 199 

thick curtains which prevented any of the light within 
from shining without. On the floor was a thick woollen 
carpet on which no footstep made a sound. 

The arrangement of the room was at least peculiar, and 
as he entered it Franz was struck with the contrast between 
its light and dark portions. 

To the right of the door its end was invisible in the 
deep gloom. 

To the left, on the contrary, was a sort of platform, the 
black draping of which received a powerful light, due to 
some apparatus of concentration so placed in front of it as 
to be unseen. 

About twelve feet from this platform, from which it was 
separated by a screen about breast-high, was an ancient, 
long-backed armchair, which the screen kept in a half- 
light. 

Near the chair was a little table with a cloth on it, 
and on this was a rectangular box. 

This box was about twelve or fifteen inches long and 
five or six wide, and the cover, encrusted with jewels, 
was raised, showing that it contained a metallic cylinder. 

As he entered the room Franz saw that the armchair 
was occupied. 

Its occupant did not move, but sat with his head leant 
against the back of the chair, his eyes closed, his right 
arm extended on the table, his hand resting against the 
box. 

It was Rodolphe de Gortz. 

Was it to abandon himself to sleep for a few hours that 


200 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


the baron desired to pass this last night on the upper 
floor of the donjon ? 

No; that could not be after what Franz had heard 
him say to Orfanik. 

The Baron de Gortz was alone in this room, and, con¬ 
formably to the orders he had received, there could be 
no doubt that Orfanik had already escaped along the 
tunnel. 

And La Stilla ? Had not Rodolphe de Gortz said that 
he would hear her for a last time in this Castle of the 
Carpathians before it was destroyed by the explosion ? 
And for what other reason would he have come back 
to this room, where doubtless she came each evening to 
fascinate him with her song ? 

Where, then, was La Stilla ? 

Franz saw her not, heard her not. 

After all, what did it matter, now that Rodolphe de 
Gortz was at his mercy? Franz restrained himself from 
speaking. But in his present state of excitement, would 
he not throw himself on this man he hated as he was 
hated, this man who had carried off La Stilla—La Stilla 
living and mad—mad for him ? Would he not kill him ? 

Franz stole up stealthily to the armchair. He had but 
to make a step to seize the baron, and he had already 
raised his hand— 

Suddenly La Stilla appeared. 

Franz let his knife fall on the carpet. 

La Stilla was standing on the platform in the full blaze 
of the light, her hair. undone, her arms stretched out, 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


201 


supremely lovely in the white costume of Angelica in 
“Orlando,” just as she had appeared on the bastion of the 
castle. Her eyes, fixed on the young count, gazed to the 
very depths of his soul. 

It was impossible that Franz could not be seen by her, 
and yet she made no gesture to call him to her, she 
opened not her lips to speak to him. Alas! she was 
mad. 

Franz was about to rush on to the stage, to seize her in 
his arms, to carry her off. 

La Stilla had begun to sing. Without stirring from 
his chair, Baron de Gortz had leant forward to listen. In 
the paroxysm of ecstasy, the dilettante breathed her voice 
as if it were a perfume. Such as he had been at the per¬ 
formances in the theatres of Italy, so was he now in this 
room, in infinite solitude, at the summit of this donjon 
which towered over Transylvania! 

Yes, La Stilla sang! She sang for him—only for 
him ! It was as though a breath exhaled from her lips, 
which seemed to remain without a movement But if 
reason had left her, at least her artist soul remained in its 
plenitude. 

Franz also stood intoxicated with the charm of this 
voice he had not heard for five long years. He was 
absorbed in the ardent contemplation of this woman he 
had thought he should never see again, and who was 
there, alive, as if some miracle had resuscitated her before 
his eyes ! 

And the song she sang, was it not one of those which 


202 


Tiie Castle of the Carpathians. 


would ever make his heart-strings vibrate ? Yes ! It was 
the finale of the tragic scene in “ Orlando,” the finale in 
which the singer’s heart breaks in the final phrase,— 

“ Inamorata, mio cuore tremante 
Voglio morire.” 

This ineffable phrase Franz followed note by note, 
And he said to himself that it would not be interrupted 
as it had been at the San Carlo Theatre! No ! It would 
not die between La Stilla’s lips as it had done at her 
farewell. 

Franz hardly breathed. His whole life was bound up 
in the music. 

A few measures more and it would end in all its 
incomparable purity. 

But the voice began to fail. It seemed as though La 
Stilla hesitated as she repeated the words of poignant 
grief,— 

“ Voglio morire.’’ 

Would she fall on this stage as she had done on the 
other ? 

She did not fall, but her song fell silent on the very 
same note it had done at San Carlo. She uttered a cry, 
and it was the same cry-Franz had heard on that night. 

And yet La Stilla still stood there, with her adored 
look, the look that awoke all the deepest feelings of the 
young man’s heart. 

Franz leapt towards her. He would carry her away 
from this room, away from this castle. 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 203 

And he found himself face to face with the baron, who 
had just risen. 

“Franz de Telek!” exclaimed Rodolphe de Gortz. 
“Franz de Telek, escaped—” 

But Franz did not answer, and, running towards the 
stage, he cried,— 

“ Stilla, my dear Stilla ! Here I find you—alive ! ” 

“Alive ! La Stilla alive ! ” exclaimed Baron de Gortz 

And the ironical phrase ended in a shout of laughter in 
which was apparent all the fury of revenge. 

“Alive! ” continued Rodolphe de Gortz. “Well, then, 
Franz de Telek, try and take her away from me! ” 

Franz stretched out his arms to her. whose eyes were 
ardently fixed on his. 

At the same instant Rodolphe stooped, picked up the 
knife that Franz had let fall, and rushed at the motionless 
figure. 

Franz threw himself on him to turn away the blow with 
which she was threatened. 

He was too late, and the knife struck her to the heart. 

And as the blow was given there was a crash of break¬ 
ing glass, and with the fragments which flew to all parts 
of the room, La Stilla vanished. 

Franz remained as if lifeless. He could not understand. 
Had he also gone mad ? 

And then Rodolphe de Gortz cried,— 

“ La Stilla again escapes, Franz de Telek ! But her 
voice—her voice remains to me ! Her voice is mine 
mine alone, and will never belong to another.” 


204 The Castle of the Carpathians. 

Franz would have thrown himself on the baron, but 
his strength failed him, and he fell unconscious at the foot 
of the stage. 

Rodolphe de Gortz did not even notice the young 
count. He took the box from the table, he rushed from 
the room down to the first terrace of the donjon, and was 
running round it to gain the other door when there was 
the report of a gun. 

It was Rotzko who, from the slope of the counterscarp, 
had just shot at the Baron de Gortz. 

The baron was unhurt, but the bullet shattered the box 
he held in his arms. 

He uttered a terrible cry. 

“ Her voice—her voice ! ’* he repeated. “ Her soul—La 
Stilla's soul—it is ruined—ruined—ruined ! ” 

And then with his hair bristling and his hands clenched, 
he was seen to run along the terrace, shouting,— 

“ Her voice—her voice ! They have taken away from 
me her voice ! Curse them ! ” 

And he disappeared through the door at the moment 
Rotzko and Nic Deck were, without waiting for the police, 
striving to scale the wall. 

Almost immediately a tremendous explosion shook the 
whole extent of Plesa. Sheaves of flame sprang to the 
clouds, and an avalanche of stones fell on the Vulkan 
road. 

Bastions, curtain, donjon, chapel, were nothing but a 
pile of ruins scattered over the Orgall plateau. 



Face to face with the baron. 


Page 203 


























































































































































































Sheaves of flame sprang to the clouds. 


Page 204. 




CHAPTER XVII. 


It will not have been forgotten that according to the 
conversation between the baron and Orfanik, the ex¬ 
plosion should only have destroyed the castle after the 
departure of Rodolphe de Gortz. But at the time the 
explosion took place it was impossible for the baron to 
have had time to escape through the tunnel. In the 
transport of grief, in the folly of despair, unconscious of 
what he did, had then Rodolphe de Gortz brought on an 
immediate catastrophe of which he could but be the first 
victim ? After the incomprehensible words which had 
escaped him when Rotzko* s bullet had broken the box 
he carried, had he intended to bury himself beneath the 
ruins of the castle ? 

In any case it was very fortunate that the police, sur¬ 
prised by Rotzko’s shot, were at a considerable distance 
when the explosion shook the ground. Only a few of 
them were struck by the fragments which fell over the 
plateau. Rotzko and the forester were alone at the base 
of the curtain, and it was indeed a miracle that they were 
not killed by the shower of stones. 

The explosion had done its work when Rotzko, Nic 
Deck, and the police entered the enclosure over the ditch, 
which had been nearly filled up by the fall of the walls. 


206 The Castle of tiie Carpathians. 

Fifty yards within the wall, at the base of the donjon, a 
body was found among the ruins. 

It was that of Rodolphe de Gortz. A few old people 
of the district—among others Master Koltz—recognized 
him perfectly. 

Rotzko and Nic Deck sought only to discover the young 
count. As Franz had not appeared in the time arranged 
with his man, it followed that he had been unable to 
escape from the castle. 

But could Rotzko hope that he had survived, that he 
was not one of the victims of the catastrophe ? And so 
he cried, and Nic Deck did not know what to do to soothe 
him. 

However, in about half an hour the young count was 
found on the first floor of the donjon, beneath one of the 
buttresses, which had saved him from being crushed. 

“ My master—my poor master ! ” 

“ Count—” 

Such were the first words uttered by Rotzko and Nic 
Deck as they bent over Franz. They believed him dead ; 
he had only fainted. 

Franz opened his eyes, but his wandering lock did not 
seem to recognize Rotzko, nor did he hear him. 

Nic Deck, who had raised the young count in his arms, 
spoke to him again, but he made no reply. 

The last words of La Stilla’s song alone escaped from 
his lips,— 

“ Inamorata—voglio morire.” 

Franz de Telek was mad! 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


As the young count had gone mad, no one would pro¬ 
bably have ever heard an explanation of the events of 
which the Castle of the Carpathians had been the theatre, 
if it had not been for the revelations which came about in 
this manner:— 

For four days Orfanik had waited as agreed for the 
baron to meet him at the town of Bistritz. But as he did 
not appear, he began to wonder if he had perished in the 
explosion. Urged as much by curiosity as anxiety, he 
had left the town, gone back towards Werst, and was 
prowling about the ruins of the castle, when he was arrested 
by the police, who knew him from the description given 
by Rotzko. 

Once in the chief town of the district, in the presence of 
the magistrates before whom he had been taken, Orfanik 
made no difficulty about replying to the questions put to 
him in the course of the inquiry ordered into the circum¬ 
stances of this catastrophe. 

But it must be confessed that the sad end of the Baron de 
Gortz seemed in no way to affect this learned egotist and 
maniac, whose heart was entirely in his inventions. 


208 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


In the first place, on the urgent demand of Rotzko, 
Orfanik stated that La Stilla was dead, really dead and— 
such was his expression—buried, and well buried, for more 
than five years in the cemetery of Santo Nuovo Campo at 
Naples. 

This statement was not the least astonishing of those 
provoked by this curious adventure. 

If La Stilla were dead, how came it that Franz could 
hear her voice in the saloon of the inn, see her on the 
bastion, and listen to her song when he was in the crypt ? 
And how could he have found her alive in the donjon ? 

The explanation of this apparently inexplicable pheno¬ 
mena was as follows :— 

It will be remembered how deep was the baron’s despair 
when the rumour spread that La Stilla had resolved to 
retire from the stage and become Countess of Telek. The 
artiste’s admirable talent and all his dilettante gratifi¬ 
cations would thus escape him. Then it was that 
Orfanik suggested that by means of the phonograph he 
should collect the principal airs from the operas she 
would appear in during her farewell performances at San 
Carlo. This instrument had reached a high state of 
perfection at this period, and Orfanik had so improved it 
that the human voice underwent no change, and lost none 
of its charm or purity. 

The baron accepted Orfanik’s offer. Phonographs were 
successively and secretly introduced into the private box 
at the theatre during the last weeks of the season ; and 
in this way their cylinders received the cavatinas and 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 209 

romances from the operas and concerts, including the 
melody from “ San Stefano,” and the final air from 
“ Orlando,” which was interrupted by La Stilla’s death. 

These were the circumstances under which the baron 
had shut himself up in the Castle of the Carpathians, and 
there, each night, he listened to the music given out by 
the phonograph. And not only did he hear La Stilla as if 
he were in his box, but—and that would appear absolutely 
incomprehensible—he saw her as if she were alive, before 
his eyes. 

It was a simple optical illusion. 

It will be remembered that Baron deGortz had obtained 
a magnificent portrait of the singer. This portrait repre¬ 
sented her in the white costume of Angelica in “ Orlando,” 
her magnificent hair in disorder, her arms extended. By 
means of glasses inclined at a certain ang’e calculated by 
Orfanik, when a light was thrown on the portrait placed 
in front of a glass, La Stilla appeared by reflection as real 
as if she were alive, and in all the splendour of her beauty. 
It was by means of this apparatus, taken for the night to 
the bastion platform, that Rodolphe de Gortz had made 
her appear when he wished to lure Franz de Telek into 
the castle; and by its means the young count had seen 
her in the room of the donjon, while her fanatic admirer 
was in full enjoyment of the voice reproduced by the 
phonograph. 

Such very briefly were the explanations given in much 
detail by Orfanik during his examination. And it was 
with infinite pride that he declercd himself the author of 

P 


210 


The Castle of the Carpathians. 


these ingenious inventions, which he had brought to the 
highest pitch of perfection. 

But if Orfanik had explained these phenomena, he did 
not explain why it was that the Baron de Gortz had not 
had time to escape by the tunnel on to the Vulkan road. 
When, however, he heard that a bullet had shattered the 
object Rodolphe de Gortz bore in his hands, he understood 
how it had happened. This box was the phonographic 
apparatus containing La Stilla’s last song, that which the 
baron had wished to hear for the last time in the donjop 
before destroying it. With its destruction his life was 
destroyed, and, mad with despair, he had resolved to bury 
himself under the ruins of his castle. 

Baron Rodolphe was buried in the graveyard at Werst 
with, the honours due to the ancient family that ended 
with him. 

The young Count Franz de Telek was taken by Rotzko 
to the Castle of Krajowa, and there he devoted himself 
entirely to watching over his master. Orfanik had 
willingly handed over the phonographs containing the 
other songs of La Stilla, and when Franz heard the voice 
of the great artiste, he seemed to listen to thorn and 
recover a little of his old intelligence, and it seemed as 
though his mind were struggling to revive in the memories 
of the unforgettable past. 

In fact, a few months later he recovered his reason, and 
through him became known what had passed during the 
last night in the Castle of the Carpathians. 

The marriage of the charming Miriota and Nic Deck 



The Castle of the Carpathians. 21 i 

took place during the week following the catastrophe. 
After receiving the benediction from the pope of the 
village of Vulkan, they returned to Werst, where Master 
Koltz had reserved for them the best room in his house. 

But although these different phenomena have been ex¬ 
plained in so natural a manner, it must not be imagined 
that Miriota ceased to believe in their supernatural nature. 
Nic Deck found reasoning in vain—so did Jonas, who had 
as many customers as ever at the “ King Mathias ”—she 
would not be convinced. And neither would Master 
Koltz, nor the shepherd Frik, nor Magister Hermod, nor 
the other inhabitants of Werst; and many years will 
elapse before they will renounce their superstitious beliefs. 

Doctor Patak, who has resumed his customary swagger, 
is often heard to say,— 

“ Well, did I not tell you so ? Spirits in the castle! 
Just as if there ever were any spirits ! ” 

But no one listens to him, and he is invariably asked to 
be silent when his facetiousness exceeds due bounds. 

And Magister Hermod continues to base the lessons he 
gives to the young folk of Werst on the study of the 
Transylvanian legends ; and for many years yet the 
villagers will believe that spirits from the other world 
haunt the ruins of the Castle of the Carpathians. 


TPIE END. 


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